Not Quite Oz
by Galanerd
Summary: When Ximena Santiago turned eleven, her parents took her to New York City for her birthday. She wished, now that she's about to turn thirteen and those military airships crashed into the Potomac and there's a ghost hiding in the back corner of her broken down warehouse, that they had gone to Disneyland instead.
1. the girl and the ghost

When Ximena Santiago turned eleven, her parents took her to New York City for her birthday. She got to skip a couple days of school, and they were going to watch _The Lion King _on Broadway. She wished, now that she was about to turn thirteen and those military airships crashed into the Potomac and there's a ghost hiding in the back corner of her broken down warehouse, that they had gone to Disneyland instead.

He appeared, like many things in Ximena's life since New York, with no warning and little fanfare.

She had been out the day he showed up, bumping into people and emptying their pockets, stopping by corner stores with decoy security cameras and filling her bag with snacks and small cans of food. She had gotten good at it - not that she ever _felt _good about it, but it beat dumpster diving.

She learned that if she went out around the time schools let out, she could blend in with the kids making stops before heading home. No one ever really noticed that her clothes were a little more dirty, that her hair was a little greasier, a little more tangled.

No one ever noticed her. Not since New York. She liked it, usually.

She never stayed out too long, and when it was time to head back, she gave the straps of her - now fuller - backpack a secure tug and ducked from the busy street into a quiet alley. From there, she made her journey almost absentmindedly, jumping over murkey puddles from the April rain that fell earlier and wrinkling her nose at the rotting garbage that had yet to be picked up. Not many people took these alleys - not the "respectable" people at least. Not the groups of kids she pretended to be a part of, and not the adults that sent these kids to school.

The alleys were _sketchy_, which meant they were usually deserted, which meant they were Ximena's favorite way to move about the city.

Though, sometimes she'd come across a homeless person, another runaway, but never anyone as young as her. She wondered if maybe they usually stayed in another part of the city. She wondered if she had been left out on that too.

She passed a couple familiar faces - Helen and Marty, who had set up shop beneath an old fire escape. She didn't actually know if their names were Helen and Marty; she had never actually spoken to them before. But they looked like a Helen and Marty, and they had never felt _wrong _to Ximena. Oh, she'd sometimes feel their _paranoia_, their _frustration_, and their general _exhaustion_, but she never picked up on the telltale _rage _or malicious _glee _that told her to get the heck out of a place before things went very bad very quickly. So she would nod at them when she passed, and they would regard her warily.

They were the closest to friends she had. Which was sad for a twelve year old.

This time, however, when she passed them, Marty called out. Or rather, he had whistled, and Ximena was hit with a mix of nostalgia and annoyance. She didn't like getting whistled at. Her dad used to get her attention like that when she was younger, and she hadn't liked it then either. Still, it turned out that whatever pavlovian conditioning stuck around, even after two years, and she skid to a stop and turned to look at the pair.

Marty nudged Helen, and she spoke, her voice rasping and strained.

"You catch the news lately, _nena_?" she asked, and Ximena frowned. She hadn't, not really. Yeah, she knew about how the airships crashed last week; it was kinda hard to not to when it involved Captain America himself. Even a little girl that spent most of her time hidden away from the rest of the city was going to hear about that.

"Not really?" She gave a shrug. "No TV."

"Don't need no TV to read the newspaper."

"No money to buy newspaper," Ximena responded. It was a lie - just that day she pocketed at least fifty bucks in cash, not to mention what she had grabbed from the stores. And not that Helen had to know, but there really wasn't much to stop Ximena from just breaking into one of those newspaper box things. They were so flimsy.

Helen eyed her backpack knowingly, and Ximena looked away, tugging at the straps again. "What's it matter anyway?" She didn't grumble, she knew better than to, but it was a close thing.

"There's a bad man running around, _nena_," Helen said, and when Ximena looked at them again, she saw Marty nodding along. "One that dropped those ships in the river." The girl wanted to shrug off the warning. She never had to worry about bad men, not really. Her last foster father had been a bit of an asshole, but that was mainly just him getting on her for not passing a couple math tests. Not even when she was on her own did she have any run-ins with "bad men." The judge that had refused to give her _abuela _custody of her after New York was the closest thing to a bad man she had come across.

Anyway, she figured she could handle herself if she met another.

"How bad?" she asked.

"Bad enough. Killer. Beat up Steve Rogers."

"Captain America?" Ximena _tsk_ed. _Shoulda minded his own business then_, she thought, and even then she knew it was unfair. He's the good guy, isn't he?

She figured having to sit through his stupid PSAs when she got in trouble in school just rubbed her the wrong way.

Helen nodded. "They haven't caught him," she went on. "Might be still in the city."

"Ain't worried about some bad man," Ximena muttered, kicked out her foot and adding more scuffs to her shoe. They were about to fall apart. Water seeped in the rips on the canvas when it rained.

"Worry about this one, girl."

"Lotsa bad men around here, though. How am I s'posed to know which one's bad enough, huh?" she demanded, getting tired of this conversation. She didn't care about no bad man that beat up on Captain America. She didn't care about the ships that fell in the river - they hadn't fallen on any people, and that's all she cared about.

But she felt the concern falling off of Helen and Marty when they looked at her, and she knew they were just looking out in their own paranoid way. They were the only ones who had since she'd been in the city.

Helen clicked her tongue in disdain at Ximena's attitude, the way she had heard her _tias _and _tios_, back when they were her _tias _and _tios _and not strangers that left her stranded alone halfway across the country, do to her when there were family visits. It filled her with ire, and she went on.

"'Sides, bad men don't always look bad. Sometimes they look nice, and sometimes they act nice. Saw a show once with a bad man that went to church and everything, and he still killed plenty of people."

"TV ain't real life," Helen said, and Ximena rolled her eyes. Maybe not, but there's superheroes running around making messes out of anything, so she didn't think that was a very good argument.

"And what about real life people that look bad but are actually good? Like-like doctors that're all big with tattoos and piercings? They look scary, but they're good." A flutter of frustration bubbled from Helen, and Ximena snapped her mouth shut before she said anything that really pissed the woman off. "Jus' sayin'," she added.

"Listen, we don't know nothing, alright?" Helen said, and sounded a bit like she regretted letting Marty talk her into warning the girl. "Just watch yourself, _nena_."

She considered her words, and absentmindedly wondered why Marty hadn't done any talking. She eyed him, and noted the scarf he had wrapped around his neck, despite the heat of the day.

"Alright," she said, slipping her thumbs through the straps of her bag. "I'll look out for the bad man." Helen nodded as Ximena gave a quiet "thanks" over her shoulder and scurried away, wanting nothing more than to hole-up in her almost-a-home for the rest of the day. The longer she was out, the better chance some cop had of noticing her and dragging her away to another foster home.

When Ximena had run away from her foster family, she hadn't exactly known what she was doing. A childish part of her that survived New York had thought maybe she could make it all the way south into Mexico, and her _abuela _would be waiting for her with open arms (she tried not to think about how her letters and phone calls had stopped in January. Ximena pushed down the discomfort and worry when she found herself thinking too hard about that.)

She got as far as DC before it hit her how stupid that plan was. For now, all she knew was that she didn't want to be shipped from house to house to maybe even a group home again until she was eighteen. She was tired of being passed around like a broken toy. She wanted to make her own choices. She wanted somewhere to _stay_.

As it turned out, the place to stay was a broken down little building that hasn't been torn down yet in the middle of DC.

Ximena thinks her new haphazard not quite home was a small storage warehouse once before it died. She didn't care much what it used to be, so long as it had a roof and for the most part kept out the cold - it had been March when she ditched out, and there was still snow on the ground.

Sure, there were a few broken windows, but they were far too high for anyone to climb up through, and the doors were heavy, rusted things that were far too hard for people to push open anymore. She figured that was why no one else had called dibs on it before. That or it was haunted, but she hadn't seen any ghosts, and she figures she's the type of person that would be able to see that stuff. So she liked to blame the door.

She knew, in the way all twelve year old's knew when something was not quite normal about a person, that she should not have been an exception to the heavy door's weight. Before the mess that was New York, she wouldn't have been. _Things change_, she figured, _when you have a building dropped on you and your parents_.

The aftermath was… chaotic, to say the least. The city was a mess for any normal person, nevermind a recently orphaned eleven year old that had to _feel _every _little horrible and traumatic thing _the rest of the city felt. And so maybe she broke a few ribs on a few caseworkers that got too close during that time, and maybe she learned the hard way that it was better to draw into herself until it was safe to _reach _.

It didn't matter much anymore. All she knew is that she needed to keep the whole thing on the down low, because she knew what she was. Had known since she was still eleven and caught some FOX program. A mutant. A _freak _.

She could live with being a freak. It just meant she could open the door.

She stopped at the door and pushed it open easily, just enough for her to slip in. Tugging the door shut behind her, she paused where she was to let her eyes adjust. It wasn't dark, not truly, as light streamed in through the dirty windows, and beams of dust lit up the building. But it had been sunny outside, and for a second, she could barely make out the shadows within.

"Hello, stupid dust!" she called out, as she always did when she first got in. "Hello, stupid ghosts!"

A reckless, adventurous part of her still hoped that maybe there was something haunting the building.

As her eyes adjusted, she could make out the old broken shelves that had been left behind. They were rusty metal things that had loose and bent screws. Nothing could really be placed on them anymore, and when Ximena had tried to push them to the side - there were seven total - she ended up breaking three even worse than when she found them. Two had to be left where they were; even she didn't want to risk it.

There was something of a loft in the back, a shaky metal stairwell leading up to it, and Ximena had considered making her nest up there. The first time she went up there, however, was her last. The stairs were as rattly and rusted as the shelves, and for all that they were metal, she was surprised she made it back down without her foot falling through a step.

The wall beneath the loft space was lined with old cabinets and a counter, which Ximena may or may not have filled with her finds from her scavenger hunts in the city. She also may or may not have had to scare off a family of possums that was living in one of them.

It was by these cabinets that Ximena had made her nest of stolen blankets and pillows, clear on the opposite side of the building from the stairs of death. Resting upon them she had Oso-Osito, a stuffed bear her grandma had gotten her when she had seen her just following the Attack of New York. The bear had a hidden zippered pouch in his belly, and that was where Ximena kept the letters from her grandma, and the one picture she had left of her parents after running.

She didn't notice the man, not at first. Not until she was into the back of the building, stopping by her nest and hidden loot. She had just thrown her bag down - there was nothing breakable in it -, had just greeted Oso-Osito like she had the dust and ghost, and was about to sit herself down as well to go through it when she _felt _him.

The emotions were barely there, but Ximena still felt them, and she felt a prick of nervousness when she did. People were crap at hiding their emotions. Most of the time, when they tried to shove them down, they ended up coming back stronger.

Maybe she had finally pushed the ghost too far this time by calling it stupid.

She glanced around, looking for shadow figures with red eyes, waiting for the air to go cold like the _Ghost Adventures _people say happen. She was even prepared to hear clanking chains and low moans like the ghost in the old _Muppets _movie she had seen once.

There were no red eyes, chilly air, or clinking chains.

There was a man in dark clothes with long dark hair that fell over his face. He was too far for her to get a real look at him other than that; he stood in the back corner, half hidden by the shadows beneath the Stairs of Death. Ximena stared at him, not moving, scarcely breathing, and when she blinked, she expected him to have disappeared. That's what ghosts always do in movies.

He did not. He stared back at her, unmoving, unblinking, and Ximena decided he _must _be a ghost, because his eyes must have started to burn by now. She rather felt like burning under the weight of his stare.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, unsure of what to do when she _reached _for him, trying to _feel _, and she could feel him follow the movement. _Wariness, confusion, _an inkling of _fear. _It floated from him softly, like thin wisps of smoke from a blown out candle. Muted. Stifled. An imprint rather than a complete person.

"Are you a ghost?" she asked, her words breaking the thick silence that had fallen. "I didn't mean to call you stupid if you are," she added, deciding it would be best to cover all her bases. She didn't need some poltergeist ruining her life. The man didn't speak, and she wondered if he had actually heard her when he gave a small, tense shake of his head. "You feel like one," she accused before she could stop herself. "And you kinda look like one too."

The man spoke. "Not a ghost-" he stopped short, and Ximena felt a flutter of _surprise _at his own words. It doubled, _surprise _at his own _surprise_. He paused, and Ximena could all but feel him gather his thoughts as well as she could feel him shove away the emotion he had just experienced. She let him have a moment. "Not anymore."

Ximena clicked her teeth in annoyance, and he shifted, tensed at the sound. She pretended not to notice, and pretended she didn't do the same at the sight of it.

"That don't make _no _sense. Maybe you are a stupid ghost." She wanted a reaction from him - adults didn't like being called stupid, especially by mouthy little girls. And if he reacted badly, she could throw him out. He did nothing, and Ximena huffed, wondering why she even bothered with this line of questions. Obviously, he was just a crazy that wandered in.

"What're you doing here?" she demanded. "This is _mine_. The door was _closed_." She scowled as her annoyance festered into anger, and she took a step forward, bringing her fists to rest on her hips. The man didn't react to her display, not really. Quirked his head to the side a bit, as though he was assessing her. He gave no indication of answering her, nor of leaving anytime soon.

Her anger bubbled over, and she almost stomped her foot before stopping herself.

"Why are you here, stupid ghost, and who are you?"

For all that Ximena couldn't see the man very well, she could still catch how his expression seemed to… falter. A sort of blankness took over his face before his brows furrowed, and for the first time since she had seen him, the man looked away from her.

He didn't answer her, and she knew that he wouldn't.

"What, do you not _know_?" she demanded, her voice falling into the same taunt she had used when she was still in school and some jerk had wanted to try their hand at messing with her.

Once, the taunts had not been enough (or maybe she had gone too far, but the kid had it coming), and a boy named Jason Travis had grabbed a fist full of her hair, tangling his hand in her curls, and _yanked_. The pull didn't budge her an inch, and Jason had left with a broken arm. When he came back to school, he didn't look Ximena in the eye for a month.

The man said nothing, didn't move, and she could only _just _catch something coming from him. A flurry of emotions. _Regret, uncertainty, __**emptiness**_… And Ximena was hit with a realization. _He's lost_.

She had met plenty of lost people before. There had been more than she could count after New York. She herself had been one. And she knew it _sucked_. The man looked at her again, and she could see the irresolution on his face.

He really didn't know who he was.

He probably had nowhere to go.

She sighed, throwing her head back dramatically. She didn't feel bad about how she acted toward him. She didn't. But she remembered being lost herself after New York City, and she remembered no one wanting her, and she… could empathize.

"I guess… you can stay," she said, and there was a quirk of confusion from the man at the idea of this little girl allowing him this. "But you gotta stay over there on that side," she added in a rush. "And you have to let me throw…." she looked around and grabbed her bag. She half expected the man to leave as she rummaged through it one handedly before pulling out a battered journal notebook. She flipped it open and tore out one of the few blank pages left out of it. Dropping the bag and book, she crumpled the paper into a ball and gave it a test toss in her hand. "This at you. To prove you're not a ghost.

"Not a ghost."

You gotta prove it if you wanna stay," she told him. "Else the door's right there, Mr. Ghost." He made no move toward the door, and unless Ximena was imagining it, which she might have been, she swore she saw him tense, as though waiting for the hit. He would humor her then.

She threw the paper ball at him, using a little more force than she needed to, and had aimed at his head - he deserved it for breaking into her place. She hadn't expected him to catch it; he shouldn't have been _able _to catch it. But with a flash of silver, he had.

He held the paper in a metal hand, attached to a metal arm.

And it was probably the coolest thing Ximena had ever seen since being in DC. If he had just shown her _that _to begin with, she would have immediately let him stay for the added decor alone.

"Not a ghost," the man repeated one last time before tossing the paper back at Ximena. She fumbled in catching it, not expecting it, and just like that her awe at his cool arm was replaced with indignation. When she looked at him again, he had settled down on the floor, well within her sight, and she wondered if that was for her benefit or his.

She liked him better when she had thought he was a ghost.

* * *

The girl should not have found him. If he hadn't allowed himself to slip up, he never would have been in the situation to be found; in the week since he had jumped into the river after the man - ( _I'm with you 'til the end of the line) _\- he had let himself fumble. He had gotten sloppy. He must have for the girl to have noticed him.

He watched the girl from under the stairs, and tried to puzzle out how she had noticed him. He had planned on only staying until nightfall, hiding in the darkness beneath the stairs until whoever else inhabited the building had fallen asleep. He had noticed the blankets in the other corner, but after nearly running into a homeless couple in another alley, he had been desperate - no, not desperate. The Soldier did not get desperate. _But I am not the Soldier anymore, am I?_

The girl noticed him, somehow. She had noticed him, and had taunted him, and something about her tone had been so painfully familiar. And she had allowed him to stay, a firm authority in her voice that led him to believe that _she _, this little girl, believed she truly had a say in the matter.

He had no reason to let her believe otherwise.

She was a scrawny little thing, The Not Quite Soldier - Mr. Ghost, the girl called him - noticed, with a dirty face. Her hair was a mane of tangled curls and her clothes hung off of her; she was underfed, he realized. Did she not have anyone with her? No one to care for her?

Even he, monster that he was, knew she was too small to be alone.

It was no matter to him. He would only stay until it was safe to leave the city. For now, he sat beneath the stairs and watched the girl.

* * *

Ximena hadn't meant to fall asleep that night, not with that man around, but she must have, because she dreamed.

She dreamed of empty city streets layered in a fog of dust and ash. She dreamed of collapsing towers and in her dream there was silence, even as the towers crashed around her. When she screamed, nothing came out, and when she tried to move, it felt as though she was wading through thick sludge. A dark shadow fell over her, and when she looked up, a large figure - as big as the destroyed buildings around her - flew across the sky, chasing a much smaller figure she could barely make out through the ash.

In the silence, a scream cut through. She knew the voice - she only ever heard it in these dreams - and it called her name. And she called back, she always called back.

"_Mami-!"_

Her eyes snapped open, and Ximena let her eyes adjust to the sunlight as it streamed in through the windows and lit up the building. She shoved down the frustration that always threatened to fester when she woke to these dreams. She'd rather she dreamed of nothing at all.

She sat up, her back aching as the blankets she slept on didn't offer much protection from the hard floor. Sweeping her hair out of her face, she looked around, and nearly threw herself back onto the floor in defeat at the sight of the man with the metal arm still sitting beneath the stairs.

"You're still here?" she muttered, pushing herself up to stand and reaching her arms up as high as she could in a stretch. She looked at him, and it seemed as though he hadn't moved from his cross-legged position on the floor at all through the night. Maybe he hadn't.

She eyed him, and noted how his eyes seemed to be closed. When she _reached_, she didn't feel a thing from him. Not _content _that came with sleep**.** It unnerved Ximena - even in sleep people should feel.

_Maybe… no._

She shook her head and grabbed her bag from where it lay next to her pallet - normally she would have stashed her stuff in the cabinets when she got back, but with the man there, she didn't want to risk it. She looked back at the man as she rummaged through it, pulling out a package of slightly broken Pop-Tarts. When she let the bag fall with a clatter, the man did not stir. There was no flutter of emotion from him.

Ximena stared at him hard, as though her glare could get him to move. Surely he felt it. But he was statue still, and something twisted in her gut. She opened the package, rustling the plastic as loud as she could, and still he did not stir.

_Okay, maybe_.

She narrowed her eyes at him, taking a bite of one of bits of pop-tart, and steadied her resolve. She needed to make sure this jerk didn't come to her place just to _die _. She glanced around despite knowing there would be no one around except this maybe dead body to judge her, and only once making double sure the coast was clear did she inch toward the man.

"Mr. Ghost?" she whispered as she neared. No movement, and she stopped, still half of the room left to clear. "Oh, god, is he actually dead?" she whined under her breath, giving an anxious shake of her hand. "Okay, okay," she said, and continued her walk. She took smaller steps to take as long as she could, and popped another bit of the Pop-tart in her mouth.

Ximena paused at shadows, steeling herself for a second before moving on. It took only a second for her eyes to readjust to the darkness, and as she neared, she took in his appearance for the first time - he had been too far the day before. She knew his clothes were dark, but now she could see that they were in fact black, and almost… military in nature. It was the vest, she decided, that made it so, with its numerous straps across the chest. Said vest was over a long sleeve shirt, though singular in terms of the sleeve. His metal arm was free, and she wondered if maybe it just didn't fit through any normal shirts' sleeves… or maybe it got caught in the fabric, especially if it's as slim fitting as his other sleeve seems to be.

She was halfway beneath the stairs now, the morning sun casting a long shadow that encompassed her along with the man.

There were dark circles, she noticed as she inched closer, crouching now as she did, under his eyes. His hair fell to his shoulders, and was in desperate need for a wash. She was one to talk, but at least she knew she didn't need to wash hers as often. He was… decent, she guessed, for a crazy homeless dude who didn't know who he was. But even as he slept (lay dead?) he looked tired. He had the beginnings of a beard growing, but she could still make out his sharp jaw.

Apparently sharp jaws are very attractive, according to her last foster mother, but Ximena had never really noticed that kinda thing.

She was close enough to touch him now, and as she reached her hand out to prod his shoulder, she looked for any telltale signs of life. Like breathing.

"Don't be dead, don't be dead, don't be-"

His eyes snapped open, and they were so incredibly blue.

"Boo."

Ximena _screamed_.

She jerked away, and what would have been a (mostly) gentle prod transformed into a full fledged shove. Or it should have. A flash of silver, and she felt for a brief moment something cold and hard grip her arm like a vice. She tore away, sending herself sprawling back. A hand reached for her, and she slapped at it, not letting it near her as she scuttled away.

When she righted herself, the man was staring at her with wide eyes, up in a half sort of crouch, and through her own burst of anger and shock, she could feel an inkling of _surprise _coupled with _regret _from him.

"What the _hell_!" she shouted, and almost didn't catch his flinch at her voice rising an octave. She pushed herself up, stumbling as she stood, and he fell back into his sitting position, watching her warily, as though waiting for her to lash out again.

"What is wrong with you?!" she demanded, and instead of waiting for her answer, she looked down at her hand, where her Pop-Tarts were obliterated in her grip. She felt her face fall, and then harden as she glared at him.

He opened his mouth as though to say something, closed it, opened it again. He looked like a fish, and Ximena was just about to point that out (including the word stupid and maybe idiot), when he finally spoke.

"Sorry," he said, almost too soft for her to hear.

She scowled, and hated the _sincerity _in his voice. "Whatever," she muttered, turning on her heels to walk off. She paused, and spun on him. "Don't-" She took a breath. "Do that again." She looked down her Pop-Tarts again. Maybe the crumbs would still be good. "Jerk."

* * *

**Do I have any idea of what I'm doing with this fic? Absolutely not. Is that gonna stop me from doing it? You better believe it won't. Lemme know what you think!**

**Stay schway, y'all**


	2. crow man

The girl was angry at him. And, he knew, she should be allowed her anger. He had tricked her, had scared her, and seeing the dark bruise that painted itself around her forearm where he had grabbed her, had hurt her.

These things never bothered him before. He didn't have the luxury to be bothered by these things before. He'd be wiped before they could. But there was nothing in the dirty little warehouse to wipe him, and he felt things now that he didn't realize he could. Guilt, for starters.

She did not speak to him since calling him a jerk. She ignored him, treating him like the ghost she claimed he was when she was there, but she hardly ever was. She took to leaving during the day. He wondered where she went, but dared not ask. It was none of his business.

He did not care. He was just… curious, now that he could be.

When she'd return, she'd have her back to him, always, and The Not Quite Soldier thought it unwise for her to leave herself open to an attack like that. Not that he would - he wouldn't hurt a child purposely, had never been ordered to, and wondered if he could if he had been. Sometimes she would scratch away in the notebook she had torn a paper out of to throw at him, and at night she would curl up in her nest of blankets to sleep.

She had nightmares, the girl did, throughout the night. The Not Quite Soldier would hear her murmuring softly, tossing and turning and tangling herself in her blankets. In the darkness, he saw how she clutched at the small stuffed bear she had. Oso-osito, she had called it when greeting it the first day. She'd suffer the nightmares, and in the morning she'd return to ignoring him. Strangely, he would swear that he could all but _feel_ her irritation in the mornings.

It was the third day since his arrival that she broke her silence.

* * *

"Do you just… sit there all day?" Ximena asked three days after the man had first appeared and two since he had scared her. She had spent the rest of that day skulking around nearby, waiting until the local schools got out before venturing into the city. When she came back, he still sat under the stairs, and he hardly seemed to have moved since he first sat. It was as though he had taken root.

Like a stubborn weed.

She sat cross-legged in front of him, far enough to be comfortable, but close enough to actually see him and maybe hold a conversation. He hadn't spoken since his apology, and Ximena was tired of the tense silence that had followed.

She decided to try being nice.

He watched her, and there was something calculating in his gaze. Not cold, but not necessarily warm either. Scrutinizing.

"Nowhere to go," he said finally. He spoke in a flat tone, but not quite as though he was bored. More… Matter of fact. Emotionless. Ximena was still getting used to that about him.

The girl looked down at the granola bar she ate on. She had another in her pocket, and she had lifted both from the corner store not too far away. "That's boring. Not even when I leave?" He gave a minute shake of his head, and Ximena picked up just the tiniest flare of _curiosity_. He didn't act on it, and so she saw no reason to indulge him. "But where do you get your food?"

Her own stash of food had been untouched by him, and she had never seen him munch on anything of his own. And if he never went out… Ximena felt a spike of horror - her own, not the man's - and she looked at him with wide eyes.

"Do you not eat?" Three days the man had been there, and not once had Ximena seen him eat. How long before that had he gone without food? She leaned forward now, and was able to see that his face was rather gaunt - not as bad as she would have thought, but bad enough.

"Here," she said, shoving out her hand with her already opened bar at him before he could say anything. He tensed at the action, and Ximena could all but hear the warning bells going off on his head when she wiggled it at him. "It's kinda crumbly, and it has nuts–" she jerked it away. "Are you allergic to nuts?"

He shook his head and she held it back out. He made no move to take it, instead watching it as though it would explode at any moment. She rolled her head back.

"It's not poison or nothing," she said, leaning forward a bit and giving it another shake. "Look, I already ate off of it, so you know it's not." Still, he did not take it, and she leaned even further. He went rigid, and Ximena had a feeling it was to stop him from moving back. "I'm gonna bug you until you take it."

He hesitated for a second longer before reaching out a hand - the metal one - before he paused. His brow furrowed, and Ximena followed his gaze to the bruise that encircled her forearm. She hadn't noticed it until the day before, and it hadn't been hard to guess where it had come from. The man had grabbed her with his metal hand to keep her from pushing him. It didn't hurt, not really. Only if she pushed on it.

The man pulled back and then reached with his other hand, his real one. Ximena stopped wiggling the package as he neared it without realizing it, and right before he could take it, he looked at her, searching. She didn't know what he was looking for, but she gave a small smile anyway. She wanted to be reassuring. She didn't need the crazy guy that refused to leave thinking she was out to get him.

She must have succeeded, because he took the package, careful not to touch her hand. They both sat back, and he watched her as she watched him carefully pull out one of the two bars that came in the package. He inspected it, as though he had never seen one up close before, and before he took a bite from it, he held the package back out to Ximena, one bar left inside.

She blinked in surprise. "You can keep-" He shook the package at her, just as she had done to him, and she huffed, but took it from him. "Thanks, I guess," she said, and pulled the granola bar out. It wasn't until she took a bite that he took one as well, though his was much smaller than her own. He chewed carefully, and his next bite was only just a bit bigger.

"So uh…" she gestured with her food to his metal arm. "That thing ever rust?" She gasped when a thought occurred to her, and he looked up in alarm. "Are you like… a super secret robot? Terminator kinda thing? Is that why you never eat? 'Cause I've never seen a prosthetic like that before."

He said nothing for a moment. Then: "Thought I was a ghost."

She rolled her head back. "Well now you're the Terminator." His brow quirked at that, a phantom movement Ximena only just caught, but all she felt from him was that faint barely there _confusion_. She furrowed her brow at him. "Do you… you know what I mean when I say that, right?" He hesitated. Shook his head.

"Geez, Mr. Ghost, how can you not know what the Terminator is?! Arnie?" He looked away, his face carefully blank, and Ximena remembered that she was supposed to be nice. "It's… okay, I _guess_. It's from a movie. I haven't seen them either, really." She shook her head and went back to her original question. "Okay, but, what about your arm? Does it rust? Do you get all stuck and frozen like Tin Man and need someone to feed you oil to free you?" She paused to breathe. "You know what the Tin Man is, right? From-"

"_Wizard of Oz_," he said, and his eyes went wide, and Ximena grinned at the _surprise_ that broke free from him. As though he hadn't expected to answer that.

"Oh, so you know that one?" she asked, and he looked to be deep in thought. "Do… do you not know that either?"

"I know."

Ximena perched an elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her hand. "Do you know who you are?" she asked, because she had not gotten an answer the first day he had showed up. He looked at her with those very blue eyes, and she looked right back at him with her own very dark brown.

He shook his head.

_Hm. That might be a problem._

"So you're the Scarecrow too, huh? No brain or heart…" she sighed, her head falling to side on her hand. He didn't scowl, but his face kinda quirked in a way that made her think he only just held it in. "Tough luck, Tin Man Scarecrow." It was much too long. "Scare Tin," she tried. "Tin Crow–ew, no that sounds like a reject Avenger." She looked at him hard, squinting her eyes at him. "Crow Man." It was just ridiculous enough to work.

"Crow Man," he repeated, and gave no indication if he liked it or not. Well, it didn't matter if he liked it or not. It was staying.

Ximena gave a satisfied nod and shoved what she had left of her granola bar in her mouth before pushing herself up to stand. He watched curiously as she brushed the dust and dirt from the floor off of her pants before she went back to her blankets to grab what she needed from her bag.

She turned back to look at him. He'd need a change of clothes - something to cover up that arm, because lord knows it'll catch all sorts of attention, and Crow Man didn't seem the type to like that. A bag of his own, since it didn't seem as though he had one. He didn't have much of anything. And the idiot didn't eat, so she'd have to deal with that too.

Mind made up, Ximena gave a nod. "I'll be back," she announced, darting toward the door, past one of the shelves she had been forced to leave in the middle of the room. "Bye, Crow Man!"

* * *

Ximena never liked shopping when she was little. When her mom would drag her out to the mall back home, there would always be at least one tantrum. There were always too many people around, and while she couldn't feel them the way she did now, she was still… sensitive to their presence.

They made her anxious. It didn't help that her mom would keep piling clothes into their cart for her to try on.

The thrift store she was in now, though, was quiet. It wasn't a particularly big store, and Ximena was one of only 5 people browsing the racks of clothes, and she was the youngest by far. The store wasn't too far from her warehouse, only about a 10 minute walk, and it was the only one she ever went to; these workers were the only ones that didn't say anything about a scruffy little girl walking in on her own to buy stuff.

Ximena held out a pair of jeans and cocked her head to the side as she contemplated them. She had no clue about Crow Man's sizing, and she never really understood how men's jeans were sized anyway. Why did they need two numbers? It didn't help that she had only caught a glimpse of Crow Man standing; he had been sitting the rest of the time he had been around.

She brought the jeans to her hips, like she remembered her mom doing when she would buy her dad jeans. It made her feel kinda stupid; her mom knew how big her dad was compared to her, and Ximena didn't really have that for her new roommate. The pants were much too large for her, not to mention far too long, and she figured that if they were too big for Crow Man, well, he'd just have to find himself a belt or something. If they were too small…. Ximena shrugged and threw the pair over her shoulder along with the long sleeve shirt and jacket she had snagged already. On her other shoulder hung a worn - but still good - backpack.

This would do, she decided. She hadn't paid much attention, but she was sure Crow Man had shoes, and she was already spending more than she wanted, even if everything was much cheaper. _Ya gastamos mas de lo que queria_, her mom used to say. Ximena never got it when she was little, but she understood now.

She walked to the counter with the bored looking employee, and on top of one of the racks, a hat caught her eye. It was a plain thing, and she wasn't quite sure why she needed it, but she did. She snatched it and went on to drop everything on the counter.

The employee didn't give her so much as a glance as he punched in the prices into the old register, and Ximena tried not to react at the total. She pulled out a wad of ones and tens and various coins from her pocket and dumped them on the counter to count out. When she had paid, she shoved the change back into her pocket and the clothes into the bag. The hat she wore, and as well as the now bulkier bag.

Before returning to the warehouse, Ximena stopped at the corner store she always does. She bought a box of granola bars and a large bottle of water, and stole a couple cans of ravioli.

She passed Marty and Helen as she returned, and Helen called out again.

"No bad man, _nena_?" she asked, and Ximena paused, looking to the side as though deep in thought.

"Saw a guy kick a dog earlier," she offered, and Helen scowled.

"That's not what I meant."

"But that was still a bad man," she said. "I'm more mad at him than the guy that beat up Captain America." Helen shook her head, but Marty looked a little more amused. Ximena grinned impishly and went on her way, lifting a hand in farewell.

The puddles from the rain before had since dried, but she still hopped around where she thought they had been, humming under her breath a song she had forgotten the lyrics to. She didn't pass anyone else in the alleys as she made her way to the warehouse, but she did hear several voices laughing too loud and too mean too close to her area.

She hurried the rest of the way.

"Hello, stupid dust!" Ximena greeted as always did as she shoved open the door to the warehouse. It gave a groan, but slid aside for her. "Hello, stupid ghost!" She ran through the building, the new bag bouncing on her back, and as she neared, she saw Crow Man looking up at her with a flat sort of expression. "Hey, Crow Man," she greeted, stopping in front of him and plopping on to the floor with crossed legs.

He didn't respond, and she took the silence for greeting that it was. She pulled the bag off her back and held it in her lap, suddenly feeling rather shy. She wasn't used to giving gifts - her mom usually picked things out when she was around, and during her time in foster care, Ximena never really had friends — well, there was the one, but she wasn't quite sure if he considered her a friend back — or family to give anything to, not to mention no means to get things.

It was a new thing to her, and she didn't want to mess it up the first time she really tried.

"Okay, so," she started, and took a breath. "You've been sitting here since you got here and you never eat and you got like no other clothes or bag or nothing so I uh—" she shoved the bag forward, and he didn't flinch, but went rigid, and she pulled it back. He didn't like having things thrown at him, Ximena realized. "Sorry," she added. "But look at what I got you!"

She pulled at the zipper, opening the bag, and stuck her hand in, grabbing the first article of clothing she felt. Upon pulling it out, she found that it was the jacket. "It's a jacket!" she exclaimed happily, holding it up to show off, and it completely hid him from her view. "I didn't know your size, so I just got a large." She balled it up and held it out to him, slower this time. "Will your arm fit in it?" she asked. "I hope it does, or else the stuff I got isn't gonna be any good."

He stared at the clothing in her hand, then up at her. She could feel the _confusion_ rolling off of him in waves.

"You gotta take it," she told him, shaking it at him. "I already spent money on it and the thrift store doesn't do refunds."

He stared at it hard before taking it, slowly, and set it in his lap. She grinned and reached back into the bag.

"Ah, okay, so I don't know how pant sizes work, but this looked big on me, so maybe it'll fit?" She unrolled the jeans she had bought, and the ends of the legs almost landed in Crow Man's lap. "If they don't fit, we'll figure something out." Unthinkingly, she tossed it to him, and he caught it easily. "And look, I got you a shirt! Like, a full shirt!" She brought it out and waved the sleeves at him. His stoney expression faltered, only for a split second, and Ximena could swear she saw a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "Now you won't have people being jerks and staring at your arm if you wanna go to, like, a soup kitchen or whatever."

He took it when she held it out for him, and she watched expectantly as he carefully folded it up and set it with the jacket and jeans in his lap. Nothing in his expression changed, and Ximena felt a twinge of disappointment. It's not as though she had expected him to shout praises and immediately start changing into the new clothes, but a _thank_ _you _would have been nice. She shoved the feeling down and went on. Maybe the food would have the desired effect.

"Lookit what else I got you, because we do _not_ condone anorexia in this home, Crow Man," she said sternly, and gave him a hard look. He blinked at her words, taken aback, and she turned the bag upside down. The box of granolas, the two cans of ravioli, and the water bottle clattered to the floor. "When I was in school still, there was this girl that _never_ ate, and she was _so skinny_. And you know what happened to her?" Ximena demanded, and Crow Man gave a tentative shake of his head. "She had to go to the doctor and they kept her at the hospital for like, a week! We can't afford no doctor or hospital stay, so you gotta _eat_!"

She punctuated the last word of her rant by sliding over the box and water to him. When they reached him, she slid one of the cans of ravioli to him as well, and picked up the one remaining.

"This one is mine. OH! And this is for you too," she said, tugging the hat off her head and holding it out of him along with the bag. "So you can keep your stuff and cover your hair when you don't want people to say nothing about not washing it."

Crow Man had gone increasingly still since she dumped the food out for him, and she started to wonder if maybe she had done something wrong. She _reached_, and found him painfully blank of any emotions sans confusion.

Unsure of what to do and feeling a bit awkward, Ximena jumped up to stand. "Well, you're welcome," she said, deciding it was still early enough in the day for her to go back out, if only to avoid the weird atmosphere that had settled in the building. Maybe she could snatch a book from somewhere and find somewhere to hide out and read. Hopefully she wouldn't run into whoever it was she had heard laughing.

As she walked back to her side of the building for her bag, a quiet, hesitant, "thank you" followed her.

* * *

The girl was a… curious little thing. Her anger had dissipated as quickly as it had manifested, and she acted as though it had never existed to begin with. She spoke to him now, from her side of the building. Or rather, she spoke _at_ him, never waiting for him to respond, perhaps knowing that he would not.

There was no guessing where her conversations would lead, and more often than not he had no idea as to what she referenced. Rather than inquire, he found it easier to just let her talk.

"Do you think Jurassic Park could ever happen? I think it'd be pretty cool to see a stegosaurus. I bet Tony Stark would pull it off, if he wasn't so busy being Iron Man."

"One time I saw a rat eating a whole pizza slice, just like a person, when I was in New York. I think it was the _Ratatouille_ rat, or his brother. I think the brother was the one that are everything. Maybe it was Master Splinter!"

"What do you think would ever happen if zombies were a thing? We'd prob'ly have to get out of the city, huh? That's what people in movies always do. Do you know how to drive?"

He didn't have time to process much of what she said, and had a running list in his already overwhelmed mind of things he would need to research. Sometimes the girl would talk across the building at him, half shouting to ensure he would hear. Other times she'd sit herself down in front of him. She always kept a careful distance between them. The girl was always conscious of the space between them, even when at times she forgot to not throw things at him, like the clothes she had gifted him.

He wasn't sure what to make of the things she brought him. He was less sure of what to make of the name she had bestowed upon him.

_Crow Man._

It was better, he decided, than Asset or Soldier or Not Quite Soldier. He had a name, a real name, if the man on the airship was to be believed. He had called him "Bucky." Had called him _James Buchanan Barnes_.

The names meant nothing to him. They belonged to a ghost - someone before HYDRA, but he only knew HYDRA. There was no _before_ for him. Not a before he knew, but maybe… one he could relearn. One he could remember.

For now, however, he was content to be the Crow Man the girl thought him to be.


	3. captain america fanboy

Crow Man didn't touch the clothes for a few days after Ximena had gotten them for him, and if not for how she now occasionally saw him munching on a granola bar, there was no way to tell he had ever received anything from her at all.

He had said thank you though, and Ximena had felt the sincerity in it as clearly as she had felt it in his apology for scaring her, so she figured he appreciated the gesture. Maybe they hadn't fit him. Not that she'd even seen him try it on, but well. She'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

As far as roommates go he hadn't been too horrible.

Ximena didn't particularly have plans to leave the warehouse that day; they still had food, and she had a stash of upwards to eighty dollars to use on snacks when she did need more food. Maybe, she thought, if she stayed in all day, she'd get an idea of what Crow Man did all day.

She was prepared to be very bored.

But when she rolled out of her pallet of blankets after having slept late into the morning, she found Crow Man standing awkwardly just out from under his stairs for the first time since he had taken residence beneath them. Ximena blinked, clearing the sleep from her eyes, and when she looked at him properly, she let out a delighted laugh.

"They fit!" she exclaimed, jumping up and stumbling a bit when her body decided it was not nearly awake enough for that type of movement. Crow Man took a step toward her, metal arm reaching out, but she righted herself before giving him a chance to help.

"They do fit, right?" she asked, squinting her eyes at him as she neared. He held still and didn't stop her as she walked around him. His left sleeve seemed a little more snug than his right, but it didn't seem like his metal arm would burst out if he flexed. Could he flex with that thing? She wondered if she could bug him enough to show her.

"They fit," he said quietly. Ximena stopped in front of him and threw her arms up in victory.

"Ha!" He lurched back with a wave of _alarm_, and she drew her arms back close to her body, eyes wide. "Sorry," she said. "How about the pants?" she asked, quickly moving back to a safe topic. "They fit okay?" They didn't look tight, but Ximena knew that with jeans, movement was key. "If you can do a squat without ripping it, I think you'd be good," she told him, giving him the a-okay sign.

He looked at her with a blank expression.

"You know," she said, and did a squat herself. The old overalls she wore - loose and stained and torn at the knees - gave her all the movement she needed. "At least that's what one-ah my foster lady's used to say. She was very into clothes."

She was less into having to deal with a perpetually angry twelve year old.

Crow Man didn't move for a second, and Ximena was about to write it off as a lost cause when he went down and then back up, just as she had.

"They okay?" she asked, and grinned when he nodded. "Why'd you finally change? You get bored with the emo look?" She didn't have to feel his confusion to know that he had no idea what that word meant. She sighed dramatically and let her head hang back. "We need to get you to some internet so you can look through _Urban Dictionary_, buddy." He continued to stare at her. "Nevermind."

"I have to go," he said, and Ximena snapped her head back down to look at him in surprise. Before anything stupid like disappointment could make its way to her, he went on. "Museum," he added, and Ximena's brows furrowed in confusion. "With the airplanes."

"The _Smithsonian_?" She had gone once on a field trip when she was still in school, and found the whole thing rather boring. She hadn't even gone into the Captain America exhibit, but that had been mostly spite. "Why?"

He didn't answer, and nothing Ximena felt off of him gave much of an explanation.

"Okay, well. Have fun?" she offered, and something in his gaze shifted. He looked away, and despite the stoney look he continued to sport, she could feel the nerves twisting about him. She drew back to level him with a look. He didn't react to it, though he did glance down at her a bit expectantly. "If you want me to go with you, you gotta use your words, Crow Man."

He scowled at that, and even as Ximena bit back her grin, she wondered if he would just leave her behind. She clasped her hands in front of her and rocked back on her heels, and now it was she that wore the expectant look.

"Come with me," he said finally, his voice quiet. She cocked her head to the side at the order and crossed her arms.

"What's the magic word?" He blinked and Ximena realized the expression on his face was his own weird, apathetic version of alarm. Did he not even know…? She groaned. "_Please_," she told him. "The magic word is _please_."

Looking at him work out what she had just told him, she wondered if maybe he had banged his head in the same accident that cost him his arm.

"Oh. Please," he added.

Ximena huffed. "I guess I'll go with you. Gimme, like, five minutes, and we'll figure out how to get there." Crow Man didn't respond, but she saw how his shoulders relaxed as he let out a breath. "You're lucky I'm nice," she told him, turning her back to him to gather her things for the trip.

She felt _amusement_ that wasn't hers, but when she whirled on him, he had the same stoney as always expression.

"I don't actually know how to get there from here," she admitted once she was sure he wasn't about to make fun of her. "So we'll have to get a map or something." She narrowed her eyes as she looked out the window and at the sunlight that streamed in, and then turned her gaze to Crow Man with his own jacket before grabbing her pink utility jacket and throwing it on. It was too big; it had been too big when she first got it, and it hadn't fit any better in the time she had been on her own.

"Alright, let's go before it gets late."

When they reached the door, Ximena pulled it open, and let Crow Man slide it shut behind them. He didn't say anything about the fact that she had been able to open it, and she didn't say anything about the fact that he had been able to close it. Maybe he was more Terminator that he let on.

Crow Man followed her closely as she ducked through the alleys, and she absentmindedly pointed out where she had once seen a rat, or dropped a cookie she had bought with some spare change she had found once.

"Helen and Marty usually hang out there," she said, pointing to their fire escape. "But I think they go to a soup kitchen or something on Saturdays."

"Do you?" Crow Man asked suddenly, and Ximena frowned before realizing he was asking if _she_ ever went to a kitchen.

"Nah. People ask questions when you're a kid by yourself." She shrugged. "It's okay though, I get food other ways."

She wouldn't tell him that those other ways often included a theft of some sort. He hummed in acknowledgement, but somehow didn't sound too convinced. She ignored it. It wasn't any of his business anyway.

They found a free map of the city in a store, and the cashier gave Ximena a dirty look when she grabbed it without buying anything else. She stuck her tongue out at him through the front window when she was safely outside.

She and Crow Man stepped into an empty side alley to examine it.

"Alright, lookit," she said, pointing to the museum on the map. "That's where we _wanna_ go. And this," she said, dragging her finger across the paper to Foggy Bottom, "is where we _are_. It don't look _too_ far." She hoped it wasn't too far; she didn't feel like spending her whole day walking. She loved her shoes, and they were functional enough, but they were beyond threadbare. "I guess it just depends on which way we take," she went on.

She looked up to see him staring intently at the map, and it didn't help his intensity with how his hat was pulled down half over his face, hiding his eyes in the shadow. It looked as though he was deciphering some secret code rather than reading a map.

"Did you memorize it yet?" she asked, her voice taking a taunting drawl, bordering on mean, and she nearly choked in surprise when he gave a curt nod.

"Yes."

She narrowed her eyes at him, looking for evidence that he was messing with her. Nothing on his face, and nor could she feel any sort of amusement from him.

"Alrighty then. Come on, weirdo, before I change my mind about this."

As it turns out, about forty minutes later, she found herself wishing she had shot down the idea of going to the museum with him at the beginning, before she realized it was too late to turn around.

Next to her, Crow Man had a sort of restless _anticipation_ flowing off of him as they walked, and it only got stronger the longer they walked. She knew, with his longer legs, that he could have left her behind ages ago if he had wanted to. But he let her set the pace, and stayed by her side, walking on the outside of the sidewalk with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets and his head ducked down. People didn't look at them, and she figured that's what he was going for.

"Oh thank god," she said, cutting off her own rant about truancy officers when she saw the Air and Space Museum. "We're here. Maybe we can catch a free tour or-"

"No," Crow Man said. "No tour."

Ximena looked up at him, narrowing her eyes at him. "I did not walk all the way over here for you to just, just, _see the building_ and turn back." She pointed a threatening finger at him. "We are going into that building with its air conditioning or by god I'ma _punch_ you, Crow Man."

She didn't mean it, but she wasn't completely sure she'd be able to control herself if he demanded they go back to the warehouse. She'd probably send him flying into a car.

He stared down at her for a second before answering. "Okay. But no tour."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Fine. No tour."

* * *

Bringing the girl with him to the museum had been an obvious choice. She knew the nearby alleys, she knew how to avoid detection, and most importantly, she offered a camouflage of sorts. The city was likely still alert after the resurgence of HYDRA into the public's eye. What was left of SHIELD would be searching for him. Everyone would be searching for the Soldier.

No one would think to look at Crow Man and -

He paused for a fraction of a second, a stutter in his step, but not a noticeable one. He looked down at the girl next to him - struck once again by how small she seemed next to him with her ill-fitting clothes. She must have felt his gaze, and she looked up at him with narrowed eyes, the beginnings of a pout threatening to break out on her face. Dark circles hung under her eyes, and a streak of dirt painted the side of her nose.

She was too young to look so tired.

"What?" she demanded, then left his side to rush forward and catch the door to push it open for the both of them.

_I do not know your name_, he wanted to say. _Who are you, little girl? Why are you alone? Were you left behind, or did you run away?_

"Nothing," he said instead. Better for him to solve his own mystery than take on hers as well.

"Weirdo," she taunted, and he did not reply. Entrance to the Museum was, luckily, free, though Crow Man had been prepared to pay. Had the girl thought of that?

He took the lead once they were inside, and his stride grew longer, his pace faster. He had seen a sign that pointed to where he needed to go, and followed it. He felt the girl next to him, and he heard her mutter herself.

"Geez, slow down, you stupid Crow Man."

He did not. The girl must have noticed where he meant to go, and he noticed that she slowed even more, falling behind. When he entered the exhibit, she stopped by the entrance.

He stopped and looked at her. She made a face, crinkling her nose at him, and gave a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm just gonna - gonna wait here." She gestured to the large entrance. "You'll still be able to see me, I think."

She was right, of course. She chose a spot to stand in which he could easily just look over his shoulder and see her. He nodded. He got to the museum; he didn't need her to actually see the exhibit.

He took a breath and went in without her.

* * *

Ximena waited. She wasn't about to go into some stupid Captain America Exhibit when the idiot can't even keep a giant airship out of the river. She watched Crow Man as he made his way to some sort of information stand - she was at such an angle that she could not see what it was he read.

She hummed under her breath, rocking back on her heels as she people watched. The museum was busy, considering it was the weekend. The Captain America Exhibit Crow Man ran off to was particularly full, and Ximena blamed whatever the hell had happened with him and the "bad man" Helen and Marty had told her about. People probably aching to learn about the good Captain's bad luck with all sorts of airplanes.

"_Mami, ¡mira!" _

A little boy tugged on his mother's hand, pointing to one of the shuttle exhibits. The mother gave a tired sort of smile that mother's often give, and let him pull her along.

Ximena swallowed hard, trying not to think about whether or not her own mother had given her that smile when she was little. Had Ximena pulled on her mother like that in her excitement when they arrived in New York for her birthday? Had she been that happy to see something so new and exciting?

She couldn't remember much of the New York trip with her family before the attack. It was just another thing stolen from her.

"Excuse me, young lady, but where is your group?"

Ximena blinked out of her thoughts and looked up to see a security guard looking down at her, his eyes only just narrowed at her. She frowned, her brow furrowing at how he looked her over, his eyes pausing on the stains of her clothes and the tangles in her hair. There had been an accusation in his tone, and it rubbed her hard in the wrong way.

"I ain't got a group," she snapped, crossing her arms and not allowing herself to take the step back she wanted to.

"Children need to stay with their groups-"

"I'm not a child!" she said, and the man scowled at how she had cut him off. "And I'm waiting for some-" she looked over to where Crow Man had been standing. He was gone. "-one…" she finished lamely.

"Nevermind who you're waiting for; kids can't be here alone, so you need to tell me where to find your group or you'll have to go."

Ximena's mouth dropped open, and she looked around, seeing at least three other groups of kids her age and younger wandering around.

"Why aren't you telling them to find their group?" she demanded, throwing an arm out toward some of the kids. The man followed her gesture, and he got this… dark sort of look on his face that Ximena had seen plenty of times on men that didn't like being told they were wrong. She never worried about what they could do to her, but she still didn't care for it in the least bit.

"Listen here, girl-"

Ximena felt him before he spoke; a quiet anger, feather soft and barely there.

"We are leaving," Crow Man said, appearing behind her, and when she looked up at him, she swore she was staring up to another man entirely. He stared down the security guard so hard, his blue eyes seemed like ice. There was a sharp edge to his voice, one she had never heard him use in the rare occasion he spoke, and his stature had... Shifted. He seemed taller. More squared off.

He looked like he was five seconds away from actually becoming the Terminator instead of the Tin Man.

"Good," Ximena muttered, glaring back up at the security guard who had gone shakey at the knees. Served him right.

She lead the way out, and Crow Man followed close behind. It was only when they cleared the front doors that he returned to his pace by her side, and he quickly adopted his hunched shoulders, lowered head posture. A shadow in comparison to how he had been with the security guard. Ximena looked up at him, frowning. Yes, she wanted to know what that was about, but there were more pressing matters to address.

"Were you really just looking at the Captain America parts of this place?" she asked with barely concealed annoyance. "Is that really the only reason we came here?" Crow Man was suspiciously quiet, and Ximena took it for the answer it was. "Are you, like, a Captain America fan boy or something?" She demanded, and didn't even give him a chance to defend himself before going on. "_Nerd_. I don't even know why he's _in_ this museum."

"Why?" Crow Man asked quietly.

"Be_cause_," she started, stressing the second syllable. "The guy wasn't even a pilot!" She threw an arm out to fully express her disapproval, and Crow Man took a swift step to the side. "We did a whole thing about him in my class in November. He was just in a bunch of shows before deciding he wanted to actually fight. The only time he actually flew a plane he _crashed_ it and got turned into a popsicle."

"What."

"Yeah! They only just fished him out a couple years ago and I guess threw him in a microwave or something, 'cause he's running around fighting aliens now." Ximena shrugged. She didn't want to think about the whole alien thing. Crow Man stared down at her as though trying to puzzle out whether she was telling the truth, and then looked down at the pamphlets he had clutched in his hand.

"Okay," he said finally.

Ximena eyed him, unsure of how to take his reaction. Usually, fanboys were quick to defend their idols. But with Crow Man's sketchy memory…

"You do know what I'm talking about, right? With the… the aliens?"

He stared hard at the street before them. "No."

"Geez, Crow Man, where the _hell_ have you been hiding the last two years?!" she exclaimed. A nearby couple eyed her at her outburst, and she ducked her head. "We need to have a very serious talk about what is and is not in that head of yours, buddy."

He said nothing, and Ximena could only shake her head.

The walk back to the warehouse took longer than the walk before. Ximena was dragging her feet, sore that they were now, and Crow Man let her. Her mind kept wandering back to the little boy and his mother in the museum, and it left a subdued ache in her chest.

Next to her, Crow Man seemed preoccupied by his own thoughts. The quiet about him changed somehow, and Ximena knew better than to try and pry it out of him. She knew, contrary to what previous foster parents and siblings thought of her, when to keep her words to herself.

Her stomach, unfortunately, did not.

Her steps faltered as she pressed her hands to her belly as though she could stifle the sound, and next to her, Crow Man looked down at her.

"Hurt?" he asked, and Ximena wanted to be offended that he would think she could get hurt.

"Hungry," she muttered. "I haven't eaten all day 'cause you wanted to go fanboy over Captain America." There was a food truck nearby, and she looked at it longingly. It smelled like carne asada. She had left her money hidden away at the warehouse. She huffed. "Whatever, I'll eat a granola bar or something when we get back."

She started off again, but stopped at the sight of Crow Man shoving his hand - the flesh hand - into his pocket and pulling out a bill. He held it out to Ximena, and she saw that it was a twenty.

"For food," he said, and had the audacity to wave it at her when she didn't immediately take it. She found herself wishing she hadn't taught him that. She stared at it, and then up at him.

"Since when have you had money?" she demanded, and she swore she saw the beginning of a smile play at his lips.

"I save."

Ximena wanted to call bullshit, because of course it must be, but her stomach let out another rumble, and Crow Man arched a brow at her.

"Well. Thanks," she said, taking the money, and she grinned at him at the thought of something hot to eat. "I'll be right back! Don't wander!"

She all but ran to the food truck. There wasn't much of a line, and Ximena thought herself rather lucky to have missed a rush. When she reached the front of the line, she heard the men inside speaking Spanish. The cheapest thing on the menu were mexican hotdogs, and there was a picture of a hotdog with bacon wrapped around it.

"What can I get you?" the man in the truck said, and his voice had an accent that reminded her of her one-time tio Gustav. She replied in Spanish.

"_Two mexican hotdogs, please_," she said, and the man looked at her with pleasant surprise.

"_Do you want everything on them?_" he asked. Ximena glanced back at Crow Man, and then up at the list of things that came with the hot dogs.

"_No _chile_."_

The man relayed the price, and five minutes later she was walking back to Crow Man with his change and lunch.

"I got you one too," she said, holding a hotdog out to him. "I didn't put _chile_ on it because I dunno how you like spicy stuff." She took a bit of her own, and a clump of mustard and mayo covered onion fell off. She'd have to get a mouthwash or something to deal with the breath.

"Thank you," he said tentatively as he took the food from her, and as soon as he did, she wiped at her mouth with her free hand. She watched as he took a small bite, and was convinced she had done well. She started off home again, and Crow Man fell into step next to her.


	4. take it slow, bro

The girl seemed more content after getting food in her. She still walked slowly, more slowly than he liked, but he wasn't going to push her to go faster than she felt comfortable with. He had seen her shoes. They were liable to fall apart at any moment.

He felt tense the whole walk back to the warehouse, the things he had learned turning over in his mind. _James Buchanan Barnes_, the museum's information screen had called him, just as the man on the air ship had called him. _The only Howling Commando to give his life._

But he hadn't given his life. It had been stolen. It had been taken and ripped apart, only to be thrown back together. All jagged edges and no memories.

"Crow Man." He blinked from his thoughts and looked down at the girl next to him. Since calling him a "fanboy," she had left him to his thoughts. Now, however, she broke the silence, and she gave him a scrutinizing look. "You alright, buddy? You got this kinda constipated look on your face - well." She shrugged and gave a teasing grin. "More constipated than usual. Hotdog doing you dirty?"

He wondered if anyone in HYDRA ever spoke to him as freely as she did to him, without fear of consequence. Yes, he had been ordered about and barked at, had been abused by Pierce, but no one had ever inquired of his well being. He's certain no one had ever called him constipated before.

"Fine," he told her, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Are you actually fine or are you just saying you're fine?"

_Did it matter?_ he wanted to ask, but looking at her, he knew it did. To her at least. He did not know why, but it did, and he felt a twinge in his chest at the thought.

"Actually fine."

She wasn't convinced. He could see it in the way the corners of her lips pulled down only just. "If you say so." They continued into the alley that led to the warehouse, and he stopped short at the sound of movement around the corner. Shuffling footsteps, two bodies. His hand twitched, and he only just stopped from throwing his arm out to keep the girl back as well. _Why keep her back? Why keep her safe?_ He looked down at his hand, then at the girl as she continued forward with little thought to what might be around the corner. _She is small,_ he decided, _and useful to keep around. It will not do to lose this advantage so soon._

"What's up?" she asked, taking a couple steps further before turning back to him. He nodded to the noise, and her mouth formed an O in understanding. "Ah, that's just Helen and Marty, the ones that live by the fire escape. They'll probably just ignore us anyway."

He remembered how the girl had mentioned the couple before. It didn't calm him, and he felt a barely there flare of frustration at the trust the girl placed in them to leave her alone.

She didn't wait for him before continuing on her way, and he was left with no other choice but to follow. Sure enough, the noise had been made by the homeless couple he had nearly ran into the day he found the girl's warehouse. He watched them, not meeting their eyes but keeping aware of their movements. The girl gave a small wave as they walked by, and the man grabbed the woman's arm, tugging it but saying nothing.

It was the woman who called out.

"_Nena_," she called, and the girl paused in her walk, looking at the couple. He took note of the name, and how the girl reacted to it, and filed it away. The woman glanced at him, and then, thinking he would not understand, spoke in Spanish. _"No bad men today?"_

_"There was a security guard that was a jerk."_ She paused. _"Not as bad as the man that kicked the dog, but still worse, I think, than the guy that beat up Captain America."_

Crow Man went still next to the girl. She knew, then, of the attack, but didn't seem to recognize that it was he that was behind it. Of course she knew. The entire city knew. She had never mentioned it, not even at the Museum.

He didn't think she actually cared.

"_Who is he?_" the woman asked, and she regarded him with a cold, accusing look. The girl looked up at him and smiled.

Had anyone ever smiled at him as freely as this girl did?

"_He's my friend, I guess. He's good_," she said, and she said it with that final sense of authority she seemed to have.

He looked down at her, barely believing what she had said. But before anyone could challenge her, she was already saying her goodbyes and leaving the couple behind. He followed, and resisted the uncharacteristically petty urge to say his own Spanish farewells. The woman was already suspicious. Best to not push her to action.

The girl, he decided, was a bad influence.

* * *

Ximena napped when they got back to the warehouse. She dreamed of nothing, though she swore she heard the voice of one of her foster mothers - her name had been Carrie, and she loved her plants a little too much - telling her she wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Which was fine. If she didn't sleep, maybe she wouldn't dream of the empty city of ash.

When she woke, she found Crow Man hiding under his stairs. She almost couldn't see him at first; the sun was getting low, and the shadows in the warehouse grew darker. There was still enough light to see, but it was dimmed, and it wouldn't last nearly as long as Ximena wished it would. The dark didn't bother her, not really, but she did like being able to see.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" she asked, sitting in front of him, just within the stretch of shadow. She squinted at him through the darkness when he looked up at her. There was something in his hand, and she could only just make out that it was the information pamphlet from the museum. "Can you even _read_ that?"

She only realized that her words may have come across differently than she meant when he shot her a look, and she rather wished her eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark so quickly so she wouldn't have to have seen it.

"I didn't mean like you're stupid or nothing!" she added quickly, holding her hands up in defense. "I meant, like, it's too dark!" The look - and really, it was more of a glower - leveled off to something Ximena could better stomach.

"I can read."

Ximena scowled, scratching at the back of her hand and feeling stupid all of a sudden at the miscommunication. "I really didn't mean it as nothing mean."

"I know."

"You'll know when I wanna be mean."

"I know."

A silence fell between them, and the air between them felt… stifled. Ximena's hand started to go numb from her scratching, and she pulled her hands apart before she broke skin. The scars from the last time she had done so had only just faded away enough to the point where they were no longer noticeable. She huffed and unfolded her legs, kicking them out towards Crow Man. They didn't touch, but they were closer to him than she had ever sat to him. She leaned back, her hands behind her to prop herself up.

"Why did we go to the museum today?" she asked. His gaze flickered away for a split second, and he did not answer. She clicked her teeth. "Do you just really like Captain America? It's okay if you do, I guess-"

"I don't know."

She blinked in surprise and pushed herself up to sit straight. "No?" She eyed his hand, metal and shiny and probably heavy, and he clenched it into a fist and pulled it out of sight when he noticed her staring. She looked back up at his face, and wondered at the vacant look he sometimes got.

"Crow Man," she started, and he made a noise of acknowledgement. "Did you hurt your head?" she asked carefully, "when you lost your arm?" She didn't expect him to answer, and so went on. "Is that why you… well, do you really not know who you are?"

The second dragged on longer than Ximena was comfortable with, and she wondered if she had said the wrong thing again.

"I don't know."

Ximena wasn't sure if he meant that he didn't know if he hurt his head, or if he meant he didn't know who he was. That was the trouble with _I don't know_. She figured she knew now why her dad had disliked it so much. It was just so vague.

She nodded, despite her uncertainty in his answer. "Okay."

She considered what he had said, and while she didn't reach for him, she could still feel a sort of _melancholy_. She wasn't sure if it was from him or from herself. If it was from him, then, it was the strongest thing she had felt from him since he had appeared. And well, Ximena liked Crow Man, despite the fact that he had come in unannounced. He was, from what she could tell, a good egg.

It wasn't fair that he didn't know who he was. She bet he was probably awesome - not that she'd ever tell him that.

"Okay," she repeated, pushing herself up to stand. "Wait here," she said, despite knowing he wasn't likely to run off anywhere. She ran to the cabinets and, despite the trust she had found herself putting in Crow Man - not that she'd tell him about that -, she glanced back at him. He was looking in the opposite direction, and if she had to guess, she'd say he did it on purpose. Content that her collection was safe, she pulled the doors open to reveal her stash.

Little knick knacks, as well as more expensive goods filled the shelves. Things she hadn't needed, that wouldn't do her much good, but that she had taken anyway, if only to alleviate the itching in her palms. Little figurines, books, pens and markers. A small stack of journals.

Ximena grabbed a pen and a journal, slammed the door shut, and ran back to Crow Man. She dropped down in front of him again, and shoved down the sudden flare of awkward shyness before it could take place.

"Lookit," she said, holding out the pen and book for him. He stared down at them, and while nothing changed in his expression when he looked up at her, she felt the shift. A mish mash of _amusement_ and what she could only describe as _deadpan_. He carefully took the things from her, inspecting them, and Ximena swore she saw the corners of his lips turn up into a barely there smile.

"It's the best one I had, okay? Shut up," she ordered, and Crow Man held up his hands, along with the pen and journal, in a placating manner. Ximena hadn't seen a problem with the journal when she had first taken it; it was standard size, hard cover, lined paper. Though the light purple color and the cartoon sloths stamped at random along with the line "take it slow" did make it seem out of place in Crow Man's metal hand.

"Anyway," she went on. "It's so you can, like, work on figuring out who you are." He stared at her, then down at the journal. She huffed. "I mean, like - Okay so after my parents-" she swallowed hard and steeled herself. "I had to go talk to this doctor lady, and she made me keep a journal. I had to write about how I felt and what I did during the day. And when I remembered anything I might have forgot, I had to write it down too."

"Anything you forgot?" he asked, voice quiet.

Ximena nodded and picked at the frayed strands of denim from where her overalls were torn at her knee. "Yeah. I was having trouble remembering a bunch of stuff, and the lady said that sometimes, when really scary things happen to us and stick with us and make us feel like crap forever after, we can have problems with our head." She paused. "Like remembering things. Things before the scary thing and things after the scary thing. I have like a whole month I can barely remember," she offered. "So, it's okay that you don't know nothing. And!" she added brightly, "if you start writing, sometimes it leads you to remembering stuff you weren't even thinking about."

Crow Man carefully opened the journal. "Thank you," he said, not looking back up at Ximena. She shrugged.

"Yeah. Yeah, whatever."

* * *

_The man on the bridge was Steven Grant Rogers. He called me James Buchanan Barnes._

_I am was am I was called the Winter Soldier._

_**The Girl calls me Crow Man.**_

* * *

About a week after she gave Crow Man the journal, DC turned into hell.

At least that's how it felt. Which caught Ximena by surprise. It was still the middle of April, and the heat was thick and wet and made her feel like she was drowning. Over the last two years she had spent in New York, she hadn't been able to get over how different the heat was.

She missed the dry heat of the desert in Arizona. She knew how to survive that. She knew how to breathe.

Trips into the city were put on hold. Sure, the warehouse got hot, but it was shaded, and outside was decidedly not. The air felt stuffy, and she wanted to get up and open the door to see if there was any breeze that would blow in, but that would require getting up from her blankets, and she was not in the mood to deal with that nonsense.

"How are you not dying?" she whined to Crow Man on the third day of the heat wave. She was waiting for herself to get used to the heat, but it only seemed to get worse as time went on. Crow Man, the lucky jerkface, didn't seem to have a problem with it from beneath his stairs. He sat, like he always did, quietly and not moving. Worse still, he still wore those jeans and long sleeve shirt, and in the evening when it was cool enough for Ximena to get up and go talk to him, she never saw his face going red and sweaty like she knew hers was.

She hated him a little bit.

"I think I prefer the heat."

Ximena's jaw dropped. "How?!"

"I was kept in a freezer for 70 years," he said with the straightest face and not an ounce of tell tale amusement to reveal the joke he was obviously having at her expense.

"Kept in a freeze-" She scowled when his words fully registered, and she felt a swell of irrational anger at them. Here she was, dying of the drowning heat and this jerk was talking about living in a freezer? "Stupid Crow Man, you're not funny," she muttered. "Where's your stupid freezer now, huh? We can put it right there," she said pointing to her corner, "and I can sleep in it forever."

"_No_."

She blinked at the force beneath the word, the sudden flair of _disgust_ and _resentment_ that came off him, the way his eyes darkened in a way she had never seen happen to anyone before.

There was something dangerous in his eyes, and Ximena swallowed hard, very much wanting to be anywhere but under his gaze.

"O-okay. I was just kidding." She looked away, brow furrowed. "You're the only one that can make jokes?"

"No," he said, his voice softened. It carried an apology, and Ximena ignored it. The silence stretched between them, and this time it was Crow Man that broke it. "Drink water."

"What?"

"For the heat. Drink water."

"Oh." Ximena glanced back at her cabinets. "I'm out," she admitted, and as though her body decided to wait for this precise moment, her mouth went dry. "I was gonna go before, but it got too gross," she lamented. When she looked back up at Crow Man, his expression was coated in disapproval. "Hey, I don't see you drinking water either!" She sighed, and was about to announce her plans to go in search of both food and water in the morning when Crow Man reached for the bag she had given him. He opened it, and pulled out the water she had given him earlier in the week.

"Drink," he told her, holding it out to her, and she saw that there was about a fourth of the bottle left.

"That's yours-"

"Drink," he repeated, shaking it at her, and then added, in a tone that led her to believe he knew exactly what an asshole he was being, "you're too little."

She snatched the water from his hands with a huff. "I am _not_ too little," she snapped. He hummed in a halfway pleased kind of way, and she decided to ignore him. Stupid Crow Man.

She took a small sip from the water, and stopped herself from drinking more than enough to get the dryness from her throat. She shoved it back at him, and counted it a win when he didn't argue for her to drink more.

"I'll go get more tomorrow morning, before it gets too hot. You probably need food too, huh?"

A pause. "I don't know."

Ximena groaned and threw herself back, careful not to slam her head on the ground. "You're the worst, Crow Man."

True to her word, Ximena woke earlier than she would have liked the next morning. The sunlight was already creeping in through the windows, but she knew she had a while still before it got unbearable to be outside. She wondered how Helen and Marty were, and hoped they found some shade to hide under.

"I'm off," she told Crow Man. He cracked an eye open in acknowledgement, and she thought it ridiculous that the guy didn't have moss growing on him for all that he never moved. The sloth journal was better suited for him than she thought.

She took money with her on this trip; she was looking gross, she knew she was, and she would need to actually buy something to keep the store keeper out of her way.

As she made her way through the alleys, she didn't notice Helen or Marty, and figured that they must have found shelter somewhere else from the heat. She didn't blame them.

There weren't many people on the streets, the heat having scared everyone inside. Ximena huffed and tugged on the straps of her backpack; she didn't like when the city was empty like this. It sent a sinking feeling in her stomach, reminding her too much of her nightmares. Not to mention, she's easier to spot this way. She felt too exposed. Noticed.

She wondered if maybe she shouldn't have made Crow Man come with her, what with how she had gone with him when he wanted to go to the museum.

_Too late for that_, she thought to herself. _Let's just get this stuff and get back._

She headed for her usual corner store, and her steps faltered at the sight of two cops standing in front of it. Their cruiser was parked against the curb, and they leaned on it leisurely, talking amongst themselves.

_Shiitake mushrooms._

She was about to turn tail and head back when one looked up and saw her. It would look bad if she turned now. Nothing to do but just do what she needed to do and hope they ignored her.

The universe, it seemed, did not want to grant her these small favors.

One of the cops pushed off of the car as she approached, and she glanced at him warily as she tried to pass.

"Where you heading, kid?" he called, and Ximena hated him for it. She paused, and itched at the way he looked at her. Scrutinizing. Trying to find something wrong.

"Store," she answered, voice clipped.

"By yourself?" It was the partner that spoke.

She scowled, clicked her teeth in annoyance. "Ain't no law against going to the store by yourself." That turned out to be the wrong thing to say. Just like with the security guard at the museum, the cops got that dark look, and Ximena could feel their frustration. She rolled her eyes and started back on her way, not wanting to be around them anymore.

"Hold on, now, girl-" A hand wrapped around her arm, and she really couldn't be blamed for reacting the way she did.

She jerked away, impulse movement, and without looking, shoved at the body behind her. As she heard the cry of shock that came from the cop, she realized that this was probably not the right course of action to take. She glanced back to see him crash into his car, rocking it back a bit with the force, and she didn't bother to wait to explain herself before turning tail and running.

_Idiot, idiot, idiot!_ She thought to herself as she ran; the cops had righted themselves, and she could hear them giving chase, shouting after her. She ducked into the nearest alley - not hers, not one she even knew - and nearly tripped over her feet. She took a split second she didn't exactly have to look around, and there, almost two feet out of her reach, was a ladder that led all the way to the top of the building she stood next to.

She could jump for it. She'd have to jump for it if she didn't want to get carted off to some stupid group home… or jail for shoving that stupid cop.

Her eyes burned, and she could almost see the gold glow as she gave one last look back before running and jumping. She almost slipped before grabbing the ladder's rungs. It shook beneath her sudden weight, and when she looked down, she saw that she had cleared at least three feet from the bottom of the ladder. As she pulled herself up, she tried to ignore how her grip had warped the metal rungs.

The cops ran into the alley right as she threw herself over the building's ledge and onto the roof. She held her breath, trying to calm her pounding heart, and rather than try to listen over the blood rushing in her ears, she reached.

_Frustration. Anger. Disappointment._

Ximena huffed, closing her eyes against the sunlight. The emotions she felt didn't fade in the passing minutes, meaning the cops were still nearby, and the heat was creeping up. She could feel tricklets of sweat under her hair.

_Fudging great._

* * *

**Who doesn't love a good ole fashion cliff hanger? I wanna give a shout out and thank you to those of you who have left reviews and have faved/followed this story! I'll be honest in saying that I still have no idea what I'm doing, but it does make me feel better seeing that people seem to actually like the story lolol**

**I also wanna give a shout out to lorettastwilight (vortexFM here on ff.n), kkiyomizu (KiyUmumaki here on ff.n), and hufflepuff-true over on tumblr for acting as lowkey betas for this story; it'd def be a bit of a mess without them.**

**Shameless self promo - I have a tumblr for my fanfic stuffs thegalanerd if y'all are interested in checking it out~ Alright, that's enough from me.**

**Stay schway, y'all**


	5. that coulda gone better

When the heat wave hit DC, the girl stopped going out during the day, and spent her time lounging on top of her pile of blankets. She slept a lot, Crow Man noted, and wasn't as talkative as she had been before. It was the heat, he knew, and he kept a closer eye on her than he had since he had come to the warehouse.

Heat without respite could be dangerous, and something about the thought of it making the girl ill made him… uncomfortable. Unsettled him the way her mention of sleeping in his cryostasis chamber had.

He hadn't said anything when she left that morning, hadn't felt the need to. She wouldn't take long if her complaints were anything to go off of, and she had always returned when she left. He hadn't offered to go with her.

When she stumbled back into the warehouse an hour and a half later, he realized that maybe he should have.

He heard the door as it slid open, and when he looked up, he saw the girl seeming to struggle with sliding it back shut behind her. His brows furrowed, noting how awkward her movements were, as though her limbs were too heavy for her. Her left arm hung limply to her side, and something was _off_ about the angle in her shoulder.

She paused where she was, leaning her head against the door. A second passed, three, seven. After ten seconds he felt a flare of unease and stood. The girl moved then, pushing herself away from the door and nearly tripping over her feet as she whirled around to walk in.

She didn't offer her usual greetings to the supposed ghost and dust, and hardly seemed to notice him - he hadn't moved out from under the stairs, instead electing to observe. Her arm. There was something wrong with her arm. Her face was flushed red, burned from the sun. She moved sluggishly, off balanced. Her backpack was as empty as when she had left.

As she neared, he caught the gleam of unshed tears in her eyes, and when her left arm swayed with her movement, she let out a pitiful whimper.

_She's hurt_, Crow Man realized, and he did not think when he set out from under the stairs to meet her before she got to her blankets.

She looked up at him as he approached, and her eyes were hazy and dull beneath the gloss of tears. It alarmed him, and he set his face as to not show it. A spot of red bloomed on her temple, half hidden beneath her hair, and her shoulder - Crow Man swallowed thickly before feeling a _shift_ within himself - was angled too far down.

Out of place.

The girl stopped in front of him, swaying, her breath coming out in labored little puffs. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out, and when he took a step toward her, she took a step back, drawing her hurt shoulder away from his reach. Pain and panic flashed in her eyes, and there was something so _achingly familiar_ about such a small figure trying to be brave through pain.

"Your shoulder is dislocated," he told her. She blinked up at him owlishly, and when the words registered, her face crumbled, and new tears welled in her eyes. She looked down at her shoulder, and her face paled beneath the red.

"No, it's not, it just-" Her voice cracked, and he shoved the _ache_ down deep, locking it away. He didn't have the luxury to _feel_, not while she was hurt, not when he had to fix it before it just got worse.

He could not be Crow Man.

"It is," The Soldier said, voice clipped as he cut her off, detached as he saw an inkling of fear in the girl's eyes. Crow Man would not like it, not at all, but it was nothing to The Soldier.

He was used to seeing fear in the eyes of those who faced him.

"It must be reset," he told her, and moved to her side to get a better view of it. The backpack strap and her overall strap reduced the visibility, and he won't be able to know if she fractured anything. There would be more complications later, he knew, if he didn't do it now. In any case, it would be easier to treat her evident heat exhaustion if he didn't have to take into account a dislocated joint.

"Don't touch it!" the girl cried, stumbling away from him, eyes wide and wild. The movement jarred her arm, and she clutched at it, a sharp whine escaping her throat. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears leaking from the corners, and her breath grew more ragged.

She was overheated still, dehydrated, distressed. She would hurt herself further.

He reached out to grab her, and she slapped his hand away with more force than he expected.

"Enough," he barked, and she went still when he caught her upper arm - the unhurt arm - and pulled her closer to him. Her skin was warm, hot even, beneath his hand. He did not touch her with his metal hand. "If it is not fixed now, it will continue to swell until fixing it here will _not_ be an option. A doctor will have to fix it, and when they learn you are alone, they will _take you away_."

The girl sniffled, looking at him with those teary eyes.

"But I'm not alone. I got _you_."

The words took him by surprise, enough to shake the Soldier out and let Crow Man take his place. He swallowed, feeling something in him _crack_. How could she trust him so? _It is because she is in pain_, he decided. _Because she is scared._ When he spoke again, he spoke softly.

"Yes, you are. I will not let them take you away." He nodded to her arm. "But I need to reset your shoulder. Will you let me?"

He said it as a question, but did not mean it as one. He would fix it whether she wanted him to or not. Best to let her think she had a say in the matter. She took a breath, and steeled her face before giving a nod. He released her arm and moved to the injured shoulder.

He needed both hands. The last time he had touched her with his metal hand, he had bruised her, had hurt her. He took a breath and let Crow Man slip away into the Soldier.

Better to bruise her further than let her remain in her current state.

She let out a whimper as he rested his metal hand at her shoulder to guide the ball back into the socket, and gripped her arm just below the elbow.

"Will it hurt?" she asked.

He did not lie. "Yes." He paused to look at her. Despite the tears, the obvious pain, she kept her expression brave. He felt a sense of misplaced pride; she was not his to be proud of.

"On three," she told him, and he did not fault her for the quiver in her voice.

"Okay," he said, and knew that if she knew when it was coming, she would tense, and make it worse. "On _three_-" He jerked her arm up, and she gave a strangled scream as the joint rolled back into place with a sickening _pop_. She went rigid beneath his hands, and he was about to pull away when her eyes rolled back and she slumped forward, unconscious.

He cradled her to his chest, and, using his flesh hand, turned her face up for him to see. Her breathing was shallow, but steady, and her face was still stained red, likely burned from the sun. The red spot he had noticed earlier on her temple was changing in hue as well, and he realized it was a bruise. He pressed two fingers to her throat, and counted.

Her pulse was quick, too quick, but not dangerously so. If she were not so dehydrated, she likely would not have passed out. If it were not so hot outside. For now, she needed rest, she needed water, an ice pack for her shoulder, medication.

Things she likely did not have stashed away in those cabinets of hers.

He let out a quiet Russian curse, and vowed to make whoever hurt the girl regret waking that morning.

For the inconvenience of it all.

He scooped her into his arms, careful not to jar her shoulder anymore than it already had been - she would need a sling, but that he could make - and took her to her pile of blankets. It was not ideal, but they would do, and set her down. He moved her into a sitting position, leaning her against him, and as gently as he could, he removed the backpack. She whimpered but did not wake when he had to maneuver it off her injured shoulder. Once it was free, he set it aside and laid her back.

The sling first, and then to retrieve the medical supplies and water she needed.

He turned and retreated to his stairs, grabbing the bag the girl had given him and returning to her. Pulling out the shirt he arrived wearing, he sat down next to the girl again. It wasn't the cleanest, clearly, but it would serve the purpose he needed it to.

She did not wake as he tore the single sleeve off, and then up one of the shirt's side seams, which did not worry him. He folded it diagonally, and once he was ready to place it on her, he paused.

The girl moved in her sleep, which was why she needed the sling, but a part of him felt uneasy putting it on her while he was to leave. Suppose she somehow managed to tangle it along her neck, and he was not there to fix it.

These were not things he thought of when he was only the Soldier. It was… stressful, he supposed.

A dilemma then.

He stared down at the sling, and then at the girl. Tear streaks dried on her face.

The sling would have to wait then, until he could stay with her to keep watch.

He left it laid out next to her, and stood, grabbing his bag once again. He would have to leave the warehouse. Alone. Without the girl.

Inconvenient, but no different than any other recovery mission he had completed in the past.

**Objective: retrieve medical supplies and sustenance for The Girl.**

He pulled his hat out of his bag and put it on, pulling it low over his face as he walked to the door. _For the girl_, he reminded himself, and pulled it open, stepping into the heat of the day.

* * *

"_Nena_."

The name roused Ximena back to consciousness, and she wished it had left her where she was as a pang of pain ran through her shoulder and down her arm. She let out a whimper, tears welling in her eyes, and tried to push herself up, but there was something holding her down. A hand, she realized as she blinked herself more awake, on her shoulder. The one that didn't hurt.

"Slowly," a quiet voice warned, and she turned her head to see a blurry Crow Man kneeling next to her. The hand was his then. The real one, not his cool metal one. She wanted to be alarmed, thought that maybe she should be, because why isn't he under his stairs? But she was so achy and felt so… drained.

"My shoulder hurts," she said instead, and didn't care at how pitiful it sounded. Her face felt too hot, too. Crow Man nodded, and took his hand away. Ximena wouldn't tell him, but she missed the reassuring weight once it was gone.

"Sit up," he told her, and there was a stern sort of tone beneath the quiet. "Careful." She did as he said, despite the protests from her body, and he helped her straighten with a hand on her back. She winced when she moved her arm, and when she looked down at her shoulder, she whined deep in her throat at how swollen it was. It didn't hurt so much, though, wasn't sloped down like it had been when she came back from her ill-fated food trip, before Crow Man had fixed it-

She looked at him sharply, and shoved him with her good arm. He didn't so much as lose balance, though he did look at her in surprise. "You jerk, you were supposed to go on _three_!"

Understanding flashed in his eyes, and he gave a noncommittal shrug. "I did."

"Not that three!" She huffed, and eyed the water bottle he pulled out from behind him. He opened it, and held it out, like a peace offering. Her mouth went try at the sight of it. "I don't forgive you," she said, taking it from him, and she swore he looked away to hide a smirk.

"Drink slow," he warned her, and she ignored it.

As it turns out, she probably should have listened, as she ended up sputtering and choking when her first big swig went down the wrong pipe, and Crow Man yanked the bottle away as she turned to the side, spewing the water back out and retching. Once she was able to breathe again, Crow Man leveled her with a _look_, and Ximena felt a bit embarrassed.

"_Slow_," he said again, more weight to the word, and she nodded. She took little sips, and when Crow Man seemed content that she would listen to him, he grabbed his bag - the bag she had given him - and pulled out a box of granola bars. Her brow furrowed, and looking past him, noticed a full pack of water, minus the one she currently nursed.

"Did you leave?" she asked incredulously, and he looked up at her through his hair before giving a curt nod. "By _yourself_?" The _without me?_ was left unsaid, but he seemed to pick it up.

"You weren't awake."

"Yeah, 'cause you knocked me out."

"You knocked yourself out," he said without missing a beat, and then looked up in surprise, as though he couldn't believe he had it in him to return the banter. He shook his head. "Nevermind. Eat," he told her, and held out an opened package of granola bars. She narrowed her eyes at him and reached for the package before he could shake it at her. Unfortunately, she reached with her hurt arm, and yelped when the movement disagreed with her.

She nearly dropped the water bottle, would have, if Crow Man hadn't caught it, and clutched at her arm. She turned her face away, hissing at the pain and trying to hide the tears that pricked at her eyes from the pain. _Why does it have to hurt so much? It's fixed now._

Crow Man didn't move from next to her, though she could only just pick up his _sympathy_. At least it wasn't _pity_.

Sniffling, Ximena wiped at her eyes as the pain dulled to an ever present ache. When she looked back at Crow Man, he had a soft look in his eyes.

"Okay?" he asked, and she gave a quick nod.

"'M fine."

He looked like he didn't quite believe her, but didn't say anything to contradict her. He held the package to her again, and this time she made sure to grab it with her not hurt hand.

"You need a sling," he said after a moment of making sure she would not choke on the food as she had the water.

She crinkled her nose at him, and the movement stung her burned skin. "A what now?"

"Sling. For your arm."

She huffed. "And where am I supposed to get one of those?"

But Crow Man was prepared for this, because he was, apparently, a boy scout and prepared for everything, and held up a folded bit of black fabric. Ximena stared at it hard, before letting out a shocked cry.

"Is that your _shirt_?" He frowned and nodded. Ximena wanted to drop her face into her hands, but one was out of commission and the other still held her granola bar. "Why would you rip up your shirt? You only got the one now!"

He tipped his head to the side, like a confused puppy. "You needed a sling."

"How is that supposed to be a sling?"

He was prepared for this, however, and laid the mutilated shirt down, and, folding the shorter points together, tied it off. Ximena narrowed her eyes at it, not quite sure she trusted it. He gestured with it, and Ximena knew he was asking for permission to put it on her. There was something in his eyes, though, and she had a feeling she didn't have much of a choice when it came to wearing it. She scowled, setting down the granola bar, wiping her hand on her pants, and holding it out for the makeshift device.

"I can do it."

He arched a brow, and she felt his _amusement_, and all but tore the thing from his hands when he held it out for her. She threw it over her head to hang around her neck, and frowned down at the excess fabric. Her arm was supposed to go in there. Somehow. She didn't want to ask for help, and fumbled a bit with it before throwing her head back.

"I can't. Help."

Crow Man seemed to fight back a smile, and she watched as he moved to her other side, kneeling next to her busted arm, and carefully lifted the fabric off of her.

"I thought you were gonna help!"

"It will be easier this way," he said, untying the knot he had made and positioning the widest part of the shirt beneath her arm. Ximena almost crinkled her nose again, and then remembered that it would hurt if she did, and just looked away as he lifted the ends and quickly tied it off behind her neck. Her arm was cocooned in the fabric, and the knot pressed against the back of her neck, but it secured her arm, and she figured that maybe Crow Man knew what he was talking about.

Crow Man moved back to her other side, and once again dug through his bag, and Ximena blinked in surprise when he pulled out a bottle of pills and a white box. A first aid kit, she realized.

"What's that?" she asked suspiciously as he opened the bottle of pills and shook two out.

"Acetaminophen," he answered without looking up at her.

"Aceta-what what?" He held the bottle out for her to inspect. She turned it over in her hand to read the label. "Oh, _Tylenol_. Okay then." She gave him back the bottle, and he dropped one of the pills into her waiting hand. Once it was in her mouth, he handed her the bottle of water, and she drank it down. They repeated the process for the second pill, and Crow Man replaced the pills in his bag, and opened his first aid kit.

"Whatta you need outta that?" she asked. "I think I'm pretty set, Crow Man."

"Ice pack." He took it out and gave it a shake to activate it before handing it to her. She let out a delighted laugh, and rather than put it on her shoulder, she held it to her probably sunburned face, sighing in contentment at the cold. "For the swelling," he reminded her, and she didn't pout, but it was a close thing.

"You know, I could still definitely use that fridge of yours."

Crow Man stiffened at the mention of it, but rather than snap at her like he had before, he gave a sad sort of smile. "No good for you. Drink water."

She rolled her eyes and balanced the ice pack on her shoulder so she could grab the water bottle. They fell into a comfortable sort of quiet, and Ximena felt her eyes droop. For all that she felt better with the water and ice pack, she was still _tired._

Crow Man spoke. "What happened?" _Ah, right_. She had hoped she'd get away without having to answer that question, and wondered if maybe she just… ignored it… "_Nena_," he said, and she couldn't help but react to the name. She looked up at him, frowning before realizing he must have heard Helen call her that. She wondered if he realized that was not her name. "Your arm?"

She looked down at it and scowled at it like it had betrayed her. "I fell off a ladder," she said with begrudging truthfulness. She didn't bother telling him just how high up she had been.

"A ladder."

"I was getting off a roof."

"Why?"

Her scowl deepened and she looked away. "I was hiding from some cops."

She had been stuck on that roof for way more than an hour, and her head had been so baked from the sun that she had slipped trying to get down when they finally left. She had landed on her side, on her _arm_, and whacked her head, and had heard such a gross _pop_ she thought it had come right off.

"Cops."

"I kinda pushed one because he grabbed me, so I had to run," she found herself saying, and Crow Man got the same dark look he had when the security guard was bullying her. "It wasn't my fault!"

"No," he reassured.

They were quiet for a bit. "Can I lay down with this?" she asked, nodding to the sling, and he nodded. She waited for him to get up and go back to his side of the building, but he seemed content to stay right where he was. She huffed, and settled down, not caring that he saw her grab Oso-osito with her good arm.

"You don't gotta stay here," she told him,and he looked down at her.

"Do you want me to go back?"

She considered it for a second. She knew that if she told him to, he'd retreat back under his stairs like some sort of wholesome parody of a monster under the bed. "You can stay, if you want," she said, adding the last bit in a rush. He nodded, and made no move to get up. "Crow Man?" He hummed in acknowledgement. "Thanks for fixing my arm, I guess."

He glanced down at her. "You're welcome. I guess."

He was definitely trying not to smile now, and Ximena rolled her eyes. "Loser."


	6. young man, there's no need to feel down

By the end of the third day wearing the sling, Ximena was quite over the whole thing, and didn't hesitate to let Crow Man know.

"I'm not wearing this to sleep tonight," she announced, and he arched a brow at her in a so you say kinda way. He still sat near her, though not as close as he had the first day and night she had been hurt. She knew, and was a little irked, that he was keeping an eye on her. Staying close in case she managed to mess her arm up again, as though he was worried she'd end up ripping it off just as his had been.

To be honest, she was rather proud that she had not.

"You could hurt your shoulder again if you take it off too early," he said knowingly, and that was another thing Ximena had noticed, though was less irked about. He spoke more, starting to use more complete sentences than one worded answers. Which was great, it was, Crow Man was finding his voice, and Ximena would absolutely be taking credit for that. But the thing about Crow Man finding his voice was that the jerk was downright sassy when he wanted to be.

She made a face and mimicked him under her breath. He heard it, he must have, because Ximena felt a flush of begrudging amusement from him.

"Well how long is it supposed to stay on anyway?"

"Depends." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Few days," he amended.

"It's been a few days!"

"Few more."

She inhaled sharply and clenched her hands into fists. As much as she wanted to throw herself back and flail in her annoyance, she didn't. Because then she might actually mess up her shoulder again and just prove him right.

Still, she was free to whine and complain all she wanted. He couldn't stop that.

"But I'm so tired of it! And I'm so bored!" She threw her head back and closed her eyes. When he didn't say anything, she peaked one open to look at him, and scowled at what a crap job he was doing from hiding his grin. "Rude," she muttered, and pushed herself up. He watched with disapproval, but she was tired of sitting around. She was getting antsy. She needed to do something. Needed to go out. Needed to feel something other than Crow Man's muted emotions.

"What's today?" she asked, not really expecting him to answer. But Crow Man was, despite saying he was not, obviously part robot.

"Thursday. The twenty-fourth," he added when Ximena gave him an incredulous look. Still, she took the information he offered and considered it, ignoring the reminder that her birthday was just over a week away.

Thursday, thursday, what's so great about thursday…

"Nico works today!" she exclaimed, remembering the importance of Thursdays, and she whirled around to grab her bag off the ground near her nest of blankets.

She felt Crow Man's confusion as freely as she would have felt her own, and a part of her was proud of him for not trying to hide it - even if he didn't know she could feel it. "Who is Nico?" he asked, and there was just a tint of suspicion in his voice that caught Ximena by surprise.

"He works at the YMCA over in the next neighborhood," she said, holding the bag with her sling hand - And really, why was Crow Man being so naggy about the thing? - and used her free arm to rummage through her cabinets. "If you ask real nice he lets you in for free to use the showers."

Ximena liked Nico, if only because he didn't really pay her any mind. He was older than her, and had a pierced eyebrow. He worked on Thursdays, so if she remembered, Thursdays were her days to go wash her hair. With the addition of Crow Man, she kinda missed the last couple weeks.

Grabbing a couple travel size bottles of soaps she had snuck out of a nearby Wal-Greens, she dropped them into her bag, as well as the wide tooth comb she rarely used. No point in trying to comb out her tangles with dry hair. There were clothes too, tucked in the back of the cabinet. They were her clean pair, and she stuck them into her bag on top of the other things.

"YMCA?"

Ximena blinked slowly, not wanting to believe her ears. "Crow Man. Buddy." She turned to face him, letting her bag hang from her hand as she looked at him. "Please. I am begging you. Do not tell me you don't know what a YMCA is." He had the decency to look ashamed, his face falling just enough to make Ximena know she should feel bad for teasing him, but not enough to actually make her feel bad. "Not… not even from the song?" she tried, and he gave a small shake of his head. Still, she was not one to give up. "Ya know, it's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!" She tried to do the motions with it, but then realized exactly why Crow Man was nagging about her keeping the sling on. Turns out, just because it's fixed doesn't mean it isn't gonna hurt.

He shook his head again, though there was a shadow of a smile on his face, and Ximena could feel amusement and an inkling of… well something like affection.

She crinkled her nose at him. "Ugh, I can't with you," she said. "It's a community center," she told him. "There's, like, a gym and a pool and they have these classes for bored moms that wanna lose weight." She shrugged. "The foster lady I lived with last summer used to dump us there for the day all the time."

The foster lady had been called Kathleen, and she probably would have been better at the whole foster thing if her husband hadn't left her a week after school let out.

"Anyway," Ximena went on, "they have showers, and you're technically supposed to pay for a membership, but Nico doesn't care about anything and hates working there, so he lets me go in for free."

"To shower." There's something about the way he said it that had Ximena looking at him hard and reaching. He felt… on edge, almost suspicious. Over a shower?

"Yeah? I think he does it with a few people though, so I'm not the only one breaking the rules." She looked at him, noting how his hair was starting to get stringy and tangled, and at how his face was half covered with a full beard. "You should… if you wanted to, you know, clean up, he'd probably let you in too."

He blinked, as though he hadn't considered it. "Why?"

"Because you're probably stinky," she said bluntly. "I know I am." She pulled at her shirt and was about to sniff it before thinking better of it. "And if you're stinky, people won't want you in stores and then you can't get food. There are rules about this thing, Crow Man."

Not that she considered herself very well versed in the rules - she was sure anyone that had been on their own for longer than two months were smarter than her about them.

She looked down at her clothes, noting the stains and how they were limp from overwear. A trip to the laundromat was needed too. She looked back up at Crow Man, who was now standing—how was he so big but so quick and quiet?

"I will go." He looked away when he said it, and scratched absentmindedly at his beard. But the kind of absentminded that was more thought out that he wanted it to seem.

"You ain't got any clean clothes to change into," Ximena said, and scowled down at the sling he made her.

"I have pants-"

"Those aren't _clean_, Crow Man, you won't be as comfortable." She shook her head and tried to sort out a plan in her head. He needed clothes. And a shower. She needed to wash her clothes and take a shower. "Alright, we go to the YMCA, then the thrift store to get you some clothes, and then the laundromat to wash the dirty stuff." She nodded. It would take most of the afternoon, and what was left of her money stash, but well, Crow Man had fixed her arm, and gotten her food and water. She could do him this favor. "Cool beans?" she asked, and he blinked at the term.

"Cool beans?"

"The coolest," she affirmed, and added, "bring your gross pants so we can wash them too. Also," she went on, picking at the sling at the back of her neck, trying to figure out how to take it off without jarring her arm, "I'm not wearing this."

"_Nena_." He used a tone that reminded Ximena too much of how her dad used to sound like when he caught her staying up too late on school nights. She scowled and didn't look up at him as she continued to fiddle with it.

"If I keep it on, people are gonna think something is up," she said, and definitely does not pout. She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes at him. "If we pass Marty and Helen, they're gonna think you _hit_ me."

His face went blank at the possible accusation, but Ximena could feel the _shock_, and a hint of _disappointment_. She swallowed hard, feeling ashamed for even bringing it up.

"I'd tell them you didn't," she added quickly. "But people are weird with hurt kids. They either wanna go on and beat someone else up or they ignore it 'cause it's not their problem. Depends on who notices." She picked at the sling. "I can keep it on."

"No." She looked up at him. His expression was a bit softer. "No, we will take it off. But you need to be careful."

The tense feeling from before dissipated and Ximena snorted. "I'm always careful." He eyed her sling and gave an unconvinced hum.

* * *

Crow Man stayed to the girl's left, guarding her compromised side and keeping her on the inside of the sidewalk. There was something right and comfortable about having the smaller body to his right, and just having her there instigated a sense of protectiveness. He wasn't quite sure if it was his attachment to the girl herself or the remnants of who he had been. Perhaps it was a mixture of both.

They stayed in the alleys for as long as they could, Crow Man staying by her side as they passed the homeless couple from before. Just as she had the last time she saw them, the girl greeted them easily, but there was no pause for small talk of "bad men." He could feel them eyeing him, as though looking for the Soldier. He had placed himself between the girl and the couple as they passed; a part of him was sure they would reach out and snatch her away the moment they could. They didn't trust him with her.

He did not trust them either.

When they stepped out of the alleys into the streets, the girl glanced around nervously, and drew herself in, making herself seem smaller. He did not blame her for this, considering what had happened when she last ventured into the city, and he himself felt his jaw clenching and muscles tensing in an uncharacteristic sense of paranoia. He shook it off, but kept an eye out and his guard up.

"Lookit, Crow Man," the girl said, pointing to a nearby building. "That's where we're going. Nico should be working the front desk." She paused. "Unless he got fired…" She shrugged. "Anyway, just let me do the talking, okay?"

He didn't like the idea of it, but she looked up at him with that authority he was coming to recognize would be a regular thing, and couldn't bring himself to undermine her. In any case, he had yet to see anything to set him on edge.

The girl rushed forward to pull the door open, but had reached with her injured arm. Before she could tug it open, he reached passed her and opened it.

"Heyo, Nico," the girl greeted as she walked in. The boy at the counter - older than the girl, shaggy hair pulled back with a headband, pierced brow and a persistently bored expression on his face - raised a dismissive hand, glancing up from his phone before doing a double take.

"Yo, wait, who's he?" the boy, Nico, demanded, straightening when he saw Crow Man. The girl looked back at him as though only just noticing him. He met the boy's accusing gaze, and Nico swallowed hard, visibly wilting, but did not look away.

The boy didn't present as a threat, and no matter how hard he looked at him, there was nothing to reveal any ulterior motive when it came to letting the girl come in for free. But there must have been something - people did not offer favors for nothing.

"This is Crow Man," the girl said, reaching out and grabbing his jacket. He blinked down at the contact, stomping down the urge to tear away. She tugged him forward, and he let her. "He's my muscle." Her tone was teasing, and Nico scoffed, only to choke on air when Crow Man straightened up, squaring his shoulders and narrowing his eyes at the boy. He was still mostly behind the girl, and she did not see.

The boy cleared his throat and waved them through. "What-whatever. Move it before the camera catches you."

The girl tugged him into the building, and he kept his head down at the mention of cameras. She pointed out the gym equipment, the hall that led to a pool, doors that were classes. Finally, they reached a door marked _MEN_.

"This is the guy's locker room. You can go shower in there. Here," she said, pulling her bag down and sticking her hand into it. She pulled out a small bottle. "Soap!" She dropped it into his hand. "Wash behind your ears," she said, and laughed. "When you're done, just go to the front with Nico, and I'll meet you, okay?"

He nodded once. "Okay."

He waited until she disappeared down the hall before entering the room.

He knew he needed to wash - he hadn't the entire time he had been with the girl, and he could still smell the river in his hair. If he left it, the hair would mat soon enough. He could feel the grime of sweat sticking to him, and knew his beard was fuller than it had ever been allowed to be when he was the Soldier. It was a proper beard now, not the shadowed stubble he often wore. He would leave it - Barnes, as far as Crow Man had noticed at the museum, had been clean shaven. Steve Rogers and his allies had seen him as that. Facial recognition devices would falter.

He had no clothes to change into, and it seemed that the girl had a point to her frustration when he had torn his shirt for her sling. Still, wearing what he currently had on would suit him well enough. At least it did not smell like the river.

The locker room was empty, and he made his way to the shower stalls at the end of the room. As he passed the mirrors, he made a point to not look at them. He did not want to search for a man that was not there. He did not want to see him if he was.

He would dig for his memories, had already started with the journal the girl had given him, but now was not the time. For now, he just needed to wash his hair.

* * *

When Ximena lived with a woman named Sandra, she had a strict routine for her hair. Sandra also had curly hair, and thought it was worth it to share her secrets with Ximena. After three months with Sandra, her hair was the best it had been since she entered foster care.

Ximena liked Sandra. She thought - hoped - that maybe she would keep her. She hadn't, and Ximena didn't particularly like to think about her anymore, but she did think about that hair routine.

Not that she could pull it off in the locker room of the YMCA but she liked to think that one day she would again.

She didn't have anything to plop her hair, and she didn't have conditioner, but at least her scalp wasn't dirty, and she had worked most of the tangles out. The change of clothes also did wonders in making Ximena feel better. She had pulled her arm funky while lathering her hair, and again when putting her shirt on, but she wasn't about to tell Crow Man.

She found him waiting for her right where she had told him to, at the front desk with a visibly unnerved Nico. He wore the same clothes, but she saw that his hair was damp beneath his hat, and his face seemed cleaner. His beard still hid half of it, but she hadn't expected him to shave it off.

"Crow Man, you dope, you gotta let your hair dry before you put your hat on," she told him as soon as she was in his hearing range, and he frowned, only just. "Your hair is just gonna get gross again real quick." When he didn't reach to take it off, Ximena just huffed and shook her head. Let him have his greasy hair then. She glanced at the clock behind Nico and _tsked_. She had no idea what kinda shopper Crow Man was, and while the laundromat she planned on going to was open late, she didn't want to be out when it was dark.

"See ya, Village Person," she said to Nico as she passed him, reaching out and giving Crow Man's jacket a little tug to get him to follow her out.

"Fuck off, brat," he replied, with no real malice in him, but it was followed by a sharp spike of _fear_. When Ximena looked back, she saw him leaning back, eyes wide, and Crow Man looking down at her with manufactured innocence.

"Don't be rude," she snapped at him, pushing the door open. "We need him to like us so we can shower!"

Crow Man let the door shut behind him, and she scowled at his answering noncommittal shrug.

As they walked to the thrift store Ximena meant to take Crow Man to, she would roll her shoulder, wincing at how the muscle pulled beneath her skin. Having changed out of her overalls, she didn't have the extra pressure from her strap to make it ache, but the dull pain persisted.

Crow Man noticed, because of course he did. Ximena could feel him looking down at her, and it was only when she looked back up at him that he spoke.

"Okay?"

She didn't want to admit that maybe he had been right, and that she should have brought the sling with them. "I'm fine," she said with a little more heat that she planned, and to prove it, she slipped on the second strap of her backpack over her hurt shoulder. It fell against the bruise, but she was rather proud of herself for not reacting to it. Crow Man's expression was searching, and he must have found something she hadn't thought to hide.

"Did you bring medicine?" he asked quietly, and it wasn't lost on Ximena how he all but herded her away from a couple that was coming the opposite direction past them. She scowled, both at his actions and his question.

"I forgot it," she admitted. "But it's fine." She paused, looking down at her shoulder. "How long do you think I'm gonna have this?" she asked, pulling the neck of her shirt to the side and revealing a spattering of purples and greens.

To his credit, Crow Man did not react as he studied the bruising, and Ximena felt a detached sort of clinical interest from him.

"Few days," he said decisively. Ximena groaned.

"Everything is a few days with you."

"Healing takes time." He paused, considering his next words before speaking. "At least it did not break."

She gasped in alarm and looked up at him, grabbing at her shoulder as she did. It proved to be a mistake to add pressure to it, and she dropped her hand as though it had been burned. "You mean this could have been _broken_?"

The idea scared Ximena. Truth be told, these were things she hadn't quite thought out when she ran away. She had figured, childishly, that she would be immune to these sort of injuries, what with the super strength and all. If a building falling on her hadn't killed her when she was eleven, she had every reason to believe that falling off a ladder wouldn't have done anything to her.

Crow Man's eyes went humorously wide and there was a flare of _regret_ when he realized what he had done. "It didn't-"

"But it could have! What if it is! And we just don't know!" She had never broken a bone before - none of her own, that is - so what did she know about them being broken or not.

Before she could spiral downward in panic, Crow Man reached out toward her, aiming for her hair. Before he could reach her, her hand shot out - the hand attached to her possibly broken shoulder - and she smacked him away.

"Not broken," he declared, and Ximena realized she had been had.

"Rude," she muttered, and then, remembering how he had acted at the YMCA, reached out to tug on his jacket sleeve - he tensed at her sudden movement toward him, and she thought it was weird that he hadn't when she had hit him just seconds before. _He probably knew I was gonna hit him before, _she realized. He didn't pull out of her grasp, however, and let her keep a hold of him as they walked.

"Speaking of rude, why were you being so mean to Nico?" she demanded, not releasing his sleeve. When he did not answer immediately, she gave it an impatient tug. "Crow Man."

He hesitated, seeming to gather his thoughts before answering. "You say he does you this favor," he started, and nodded to her damp hair. "People… do not do these… nice things just to be nice," he concluded, voice quiet and solemn in such a way that Ximena wondered what had happened to him to make him say that. Her brows furrowed as she took in his words, and figured he did have a point - her own two years in foster care had taught her that, but well:

"Some people do nice things just to be nice," she said, motivated by equal parts spite and her own belief to argue. "I mean, not a lot, but some." She grinned up at him and gestured to herself. "Lookit, I got you food and clothes just to be nice!"

There it was again, that two for one combo of _amusement_ and maybe _affection_. "Yes, but you were mean first." She opened her mouth to argue, only to realize that yes, he was right. She puffed her cheeks with air and let it out a melodramatic sigh. "Okay, but…" she floundered, trying to think of a counter argument. "You fixed my arm! That was nice." Next to her, Crow Man's steps faltered, and she knew she had him by the funky expression he got on his face. "AND, before that, you gave me money for a hot dog. That was very nice of you, Crow Man."

Ximena wondered if maybe that was the wrong thing to say, as she felt him go still next to her, his emotions stalling like a frozen video game. His face went blank, not hard, but he lost the softness in his eyes as he looked away, as though deep in thought. He opened his mouth to speak, but must have decided against it when he looked back down at her.

She met his gaze, curious – he was having a moment, she knew it. Maybe he was remembering something. Maybe Crow Man before he was Crow Man was more of a jerk.

Before he could hurt himself with overthinking, Ximena stopped in front of the thrift shop, turned to Crow Man, and dutifully asked, "You ready to pop some tags?"

He blinked down at her, and she could practically see the reference go over his head.

"Only got twenty dollars in my pocket?" she tried, and there was a twinge of concern in his expression.

"I brought money-" he started, reaching into his pocket. Ximena stuck out her tongue and blew out a distressed raspberry.

"I can't bring you anywhere," she said, and gestured to the door for him to pull open.


	7. poppin' tags

"What about this shirt?" the girl asked, and Crow Man's gaze snapped away from the woman standing by the purses rack—she had been eyeing them with distaste since they entered the store, and if the girl was not going to be aware of these things while she was still physically compromised, then he would. As it was, the girl was holding up a long sleeved shirt for him to see. It wasn't so different in design as the shirt he wore now, though it looked lighter, not as thick.

He went still as she pressed the shirt up to his chest, pinning it against him at his shoulders. She tilted her head to the side, wrinkling her nose as she examined him.

"I think it'll work. What do you think?"

He swallowed as she pulled it away. "It will work," he agreed, not caring so long as it fit and covered his arm.

"Okay, now pants!" She turned on her heels and tossing the shirt over her shoulder. He followed after her, and noted that the woman by the purses wrinkled her nose—disdainful, different than how the girl just had. His little companion must have been paying more attention than he gave her credit for as her head snapped up toward the woman, and the set of her shoulders squared off.

Crow Man could practically feel her offense bubbling up, and before she could call out - for she no doubt would have - he reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"_Nena,_" he said, voice low in warning. It would not do for them to get anymore unwanted attention.

He had prepared for the girl to lash out at him for stopping her, but instead she went still beneath his touch, and then deflated, though her shoulders remained tense.

"I wasn't gonna do nothing," she muttered, shrugging him off. Her voice was off, downtrodden, and something in his chest tightened. As they walked to the rack with pants, Crow Man caught the woman's eye. She did a double take at the glare he sent her, and swallowed hard before turning her attention back to what she was doing.

He hardly paid mind as the girl poked through the rack, instead keeping his head down and angled away from the cameras situated in the corners of the store, and monitoring the storefront for new arrivals.

"Do you remember what size I got you last?" the girl asked, and his brow furrowed at the question. Her face pulled the way it often did when he revealed he didn't know what she spoke of. "Did you even look at it before you tried them on?" Should he have? _Of course. Nothing will be tailor made by HYDRA anymore_. "Crow _Man_!" she snapped, and shook her head when he looked down at her. "Here," she said, holding out a pair of pants to him. "See if these might fit around your waist."

He frowned down at the pants - faded jeans, not too worn - and then back up at her. Did she mean for him to change into them? He looked around for a changing room.

"No, you dope, just like-" she floundered before snatching the pants out of his hand. "Like _this_." She held them to her hips. "They won't…" She glanced past him at the employee, and then the purse woman, who had moved on to the women's blouses. "They won't let you try it on," she said quietly.

"Why?"

She didn't answer immediately, and instead took a moment to _look_ at him. It was probably the first time she had stopped to think of what she would say next. That did not make it anymore tactful.

"You still look super homeless, Crow Man. Just see if the seam meets the side seam of the pants you're already wearing, and if it don't then get one that does," she instructed him, handing the pants back off to him. "I'm gonna go look at the books," she told him, and he went still.

The bookshelf she wanted to go to rested against the left wall in a little area that was down a step. Approximately thirteen feet away from where he stood, twenty away from the woman by the purses. Seventeen feet away from the front entrance and ten away from the cashier who had registered as less as a threat than the boy Nico.

He nodded once, certain that he could reach her before anything else in and out of the store barring a bullet. "Okay."

He knew the girl was not asking for permission, and that he was not someone she should seek it from, but it was not until he spoke that she moved away. He watched, ensuring she made it to the shelf. Even when he looked back to what he was meant to be doing, he found himself keeping her in his peripheral vision.

_She is still physically compromised_, he reasoned with himself when he felt a twinge of confusion at his actions. Still, it did not answer why he _cared_. He looked down at the pants she had given him and tried to puzzle it out. Despite the lack of threat, despite the fact he would still be able to reach her, could just call out and call her back, he felt uncomfortable with the distance she had put between them. Just as he had when the heat wave hit and she had grown lethargic. Just as he had when she had joked about sleeping in his cryostasis chamber—though he would admit that he should not have mentioned it to begin with.

_She's useful_, he thought. _Resourceful. Offered a camouflage in the city. It would not do to lose the advantage she offered_.

Still, despite what she offered, he did not _need_ her; he was, after all, a skilled asset of HYDRA. There was not a city he could not maneuver, given time. He could fall beneath detection just as well without the smaller body next to him, perhaps even better so. Truth be told, the girl was a distraction. Still…

He looked up at her, and felt a soft, foreign warmth in his chest. She rocked back on her heels, head craned up as she read the titles of the books on the higher levels of the shelf. Her hair had mostly dried in the heat outside on their walk to the shop, and was now more frizz than curls.

No, he did not need her. Still, he would stay with her for now. Until he could leave the city.

The pants she had given him were too short, and so he had to replace them with another pair. By the time he had hunted one down in the disorganized rack, the girl was rushing back to him. He had heard her exclaim in excitement, and had prepared to stop her before she crashed into either him or the nearby clothes, but she managed to stop herself just before either could happen. She clutched a book to her chest, and her eyes were bright as she looked up at him and shoved it out to him.

"Crow Man, lookit what I found!"

He drew back to avoid being hit by the book in the nose, and then carefully extracted it from the girl's hand. He glanced down at her with an arched brow at her actions, and she drew her arm back, having the decency to look reprimanded. Her nose was peeling, he noted, and her face was less red and more brown now.

"Did you know it was a book before it was a movie?" she asked as he turned his attention back to the book. The cover was old and worn, and the gold detailing had gone dull and was fading. Still, he could make out the words, and the four small figures engraved on the front.

_The Wonderful Wizard of Oz._

"I'm gonna take it," the girl went on as he flipped it open. The pages had gone yellow, and smelled of mildew and dust. He wondered if it would survive the warehouse. Not likely. But as he held it back to the girl, he could not find it in himself to bring up the thought at the sight of her pleased smile.

"Are you done?" she asked, and he nodded. But as he did, he noticed a small stand near the back corner, and noted how the clothing items there were rather out of season. Winter caps, scarves, gloves-

He looked down at his metal hand. It would not do for someone to see it and recognize it. The long sleeves shirts only did so much. Decision made, he went to the stand, the girl following close behind. He picked up a pair of large black gloves, worn and the fabric pilling, but still intact. They would do.

"Now I am ready."

* * *

The laundromat Ximena brought Crow Man was more run down than some of the others in the city, but the old man who ran it stayed in the back office and didn't lock the bathroom. The bathroom itself wasn't very clean as a result, but the machines worked well enough, and there were chairs to sit in, and an old vending machine with individual packets of detergent, so Ximena thought it was good enough.

"Go change," Ximena ordered Crow Man, pushing him to the restroom in the back, and he shot her a _look_. "Just _go_," she urged. "Hurry up before someone comes in and takes the good washer!"

He glanced around, and Ximena huffed in annoyance at the confusion he felt. Before she could get on to him again, he was off, and she made her way to the soap vending machine. Digging her change out of her pocket, she stuck a bill in and selected the cheapest option.

Crow Man returned with his clothes folded in his hands just as Ximena was throwing her own clothes into the washer in the back corner. He stopped next to her, and eyed the machine critically. Ximena couldn't find it in herself to blame him. The thing might have been older than her for all she knew, and soap residue ran down the front in a trail of stains. It was lopsided, one of the feet at the bottom having gone missing long before Ximena first found the place, and would rock dangerously if not weighed down. She had taken to sitting on top of it despite the signs claiming the prohibition of the action.

"It does not look like the good washer," Crow Man said after a beat of silence, and Ximena rolled her eyes, snatching the clothes from his hands and dropping them in. She had already poured in the soap, and slammed the door shut with more force than necessary.

"It's one-ah the better ones," she told him, setting the dials and hopping on top of it before it could start its dance. "Go get a chair or something; we're gonna be here for a while."

As Crow Man dragged a chair back next to the machine she sat on, Ximena pulled her bag into her lap and retrieved the book she had just bought. It felt fragile in her hands, and she reminded herself to take care with it if she wanted it to last. She had forgotten herself once, and had accidentally ripped a library book right down the middle. She didn't need to feel it to know just how pissed the librarian on duty had been.

Before he went to sit, Crow Man once again eyed the machine. Ximena looked up at him expectantly, swaying atop the machine as it rocked.

"What?" she demanded, and he frowned, only just, and took his hat off. The ends of his hair had started to poof with frizz, but what had been under the hat had been plastered to his head until he ran a hand through it, airing it out.

"Is that safe?" he asked, and she looked down at the machine as he went on. "It doesn't hurt your shoulder?"

She dropped her head back and rolled her eyes. "It's _fine_." She righted herself and grinned, giving the side of the machine a loving pat. "'Oh, the pioneers used to ride these babies for miles,'" she quoted, and lamented on how the reference was lost on Crow Man. But for what it's worth, despite his confusion, he only hummed in uncertain acknowledgment before finally sitting next to her.

They sat in relative silence, the creaking and sloshing of the machine aside.

"Hey, Crow Man," Ximena started after a few minutes passed. He was jotting away at the sloth journal she had given him, and she wanted to laugh at how much it did not fit with his rugged appearance. Before she could be a snoop, he clicked his pen and snapped the book shut.

"Hey, _nena_," he said in return, looking back up at her. There he was, using that name like it was actually hers. She wondered how long it would take him to realize that wasn't actually her name. _I'll allow it_, she figured, _if he lets me keep calling him Crow Man._

"Did you know Dorothy's shoes were actually _silver_ in the book?"

He hummed in a noncommittal _you don't say_ kinda way. "They were red in the movie," he said, almost absentmindedly.

"I know! I wonder why they changed it. Silver would have looked cooler." She paused and glanced down at his left hand, only to see that he had hidden it within one of the gloves he had bought at the thrift store. He noticed her looking at it, and clenched it into a fist, but did not hide it away.

"Why are you hiding your arm?" It wasn't her business, and she had no right to ask him that question. Judging by how he tightened his grip, eyes narrowing at the gloved arm, he thought so too. Ximena felt a flash of resentment from him - sharp and almost painful in comparison to his usually muted emotions, but not directed at her. She thought she heard a mechanical whirl from his arm.

"You don't have to answer that," she said, backpedaling, not meaning to have made him uncomfortable. But he opened his hand, and his eyes softened in a sad sort of way when he looked to her again.

"I do not like my arm," he said, and Ximena blinked at how freely he gave that, at the tired sincerity and resignation she felt pulling her down.

"Can I say a thing?" she asked after a beat, and a shadow of a smile played at his lips. He gestured for her to go on. "I think it's kinda cool. Like, really cool," she told him. He stared at her before looking back down at it. "But that's just me."

He hummed. "Just you then."

Well, she hadn't expected to completely change his mind about the thing. He was more relaxed after she said that thought, the hard set of his shoulders easing away.

He began to go back to his journal, only to still when Ximena - not known for her tact - leaned over to snoop. She drew back at the arched brow he directed at her.

"Yes?"

"Whatcha writing?" she asked, propping her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. "Is it helping you remember?" Her eyes went wide and she leaned toward him precariously. "Do you know your name now?!"

He didn't immediately reply, and when he did, he gave a shrug. She didn't think she'd get anything from him, but still felt a twinge of disappointment. And really, just as with his arm, it wasn't any of her business.

"That sucks." She huffed, blowing a barely formed curl out of her face. "Well, you'd still be Crow Man to me even if you remembered your name." When she looked back down at him, she blinked at how intently he was staring at her. "What?" she demanded, straightening and on the defense.

He opened his mouth to speak, and then snapped it shut and looked away. She _reached_, and pushed through a heavy yet somehow diluted cloud of emotions she knew all too well. They swirled among each other, making it hard, but not impossible, to pick out the most prominent. _Grief, guilt_, and buried within those, _longing_.

"Crow Man." She got his attention, and just like a puff of smoke waved away, the emotions were gone. Muted completely. "You don't gotta-" She stopped herself, unsure of what she wanted to say. "You don't gotta hurry in figuring yourself out, you know,"she said, looking away from him. "'S not like I'm gonna kick you out or nothing."

Her face felt sunburned all over again. Next to her, Crow Man seemed to sort of _settle_.

"I will take my time then, if you won't kick me out."

She huffed. "Just don't get too comfortable." She didn't mean it, but she didn't need him thinking she went soft on him. Still, when she glanced back at him, he was looking away, hiding a barely there grin.

By the time both the washer and dryer finally finished with their clothes, the sun had gone down behind the city's buildings, and the street lights had kicked on. Ximena usually preferred to be back at the warehouse by the time it started to go dark. People she'd rather not meet liked to come out at night. The "bad men" Helen was so worried about. And while she loved the alleys during the day, they weren't exactly ideal at night.

"Ready?" Crow Man asked as she put her now clean and folded clothes in her backpack. She nodded as she slung it on her back.

"Ready."

Crow Man led the way out, and held the door for her after himself. She figured, as they walked down the sidewalk, that he was enough to scare away any bad men.

Not that she needed the protection - she could take care of any problem on her own just _fine_ \- but not having to was nice too. In any case, she didn't think they'd have trouble on a weeknight.

Still, Crow Man stayed close by her side, keeping her away from the passing cars on the street and herding her away from other pedestrians. It was ridiculous, honestly, and she wondered how he'd react if he found out she was stronger than him.

_Whatever. He'll probably be gone before that_.

Ximena frowned at the thought, and then scowled at herself for being upset. What did she care that Crow Man would leave? People left all the time, or sent her away. It's what they did.

"Okay?" She looked up at him, pulled from her thoughts, and noted how despite his expression remained rather neutral, there was an air of concern about him. She huffed and tugged at the straps of her bag, and the left pulled uncomfortably against her shoulder.

"Nothin'. Just-"

They were at the mouth of the alley she used to get to their warehouse when she stopped cold. Her hands, still gripping the straps, shook and began to slip with sweat. Her back went rigid, and she felt as though cold fingers ran up her spine.

She was _scared_, and it wasn't _her_ fear that made her shake. She hadn't reacted to an emotion like that since she had been in New York, and she knew that whatever was happening, it must be _bad_.

"_Nena-_"

She ignored Crow Man, looking around. There was no one on the sidewalk around them that gave away such a fear. She turned back to face the alley; it had gone dark, the light from the lamps barely reaching within. It was coming from there. Who-

Helen and Marty.

Crow Man was saying something, but Ximena didn't hear him as she tore into the alley, into the darkness.


	8. fight scene

The girl took off into the alley, and Crow Man was a fraction of a second too late in reaching out to grab her by the backpack and pulling her back to him. Her speed caught him by surprise, and he cursed himself in Russian for underestimating her. More so, he hated that she seemed to have sensed something he had not. He had seen her tense, and had recognized the look in her eyes.

She was frightened.

But she didn't run _from _something; she had run _toward _it. It was so achingly familiar, the frustration he had felt at her actions, and he found himself frozen when, instead of a small girl with dark tangled curls, he saw a small boy with boney arms and blond hair.

_Steve_, a voice in the back of his head supplied, and he shook it away, realizing the girl had disappeared around the corner.

He cursed himself again for the distraction - how stupid, how dangerous - and darted into the alley after her.

* * *

Ximena wasn't exactly known for completely thinking out her actions, and this time was no different. She had only felt fear that wasn't hers, fear that belonged to someone who had been, in their own paranoid way, kind to her, and she wasn't gonna stand around and let their fear paralyze her.

She had already let that happen plenty after the attack on New York.

The fear grew the closer she got to Helen and Marty's fire escape, and she had to pull back within herself to keep it from overwhelming her. There was anger as well, underlying the fear, and separate from those, that _malicious glee_ she had spent her entire time on her own trying to avoid. She heard spanish cursing, a raspy feminine voice trying to shout to be left alone, and she heard mean, drunken laughter.

She turned the corner, and only took a split second to unpack the scene in front of her. Three men, shoving and tugging at Marty, hitting him and laughing, as another pushed Helen away. Ximena felt her eyes burn, and she didn't think before barreling into a knot of bodies pressed against the wall.

"Leave 'em alone!" she shouted, shoving at the closest body that obviously wasn't Helen or Marty; it wore too nice of clothes, and not enough layers. The laughter was cut off by a sharp cry, and the person she had shoved crashed into someone else, another stranger. They crashed into the ground several feet away. Next to her, Marty stumbled away into the wall, nearly falling over.

"_Nena!"_

Ximena ignored how Helen called out to her, and she turned to face the two left standing. As it were, her appearance seemed to have sobered them up a bit, and she refused to believe she had made a mistake even as they whirled on her.

_I'm stronger than them, I'm stronger than them, I'm stronger than them, even if they're bigger than me,_ she told herself as the man holding Helen shoved her away.

"Hey, what the _hell_ was _that_?!" Ximena's head snapped to the side to see the men she had shoved away picking themselves up, expressions dark when they saw her, and she swallowed hard.

_I'm stronger than them_.

No, Ximena was not known to think these things through. She knew she could handle any bad man that came after her. She was less sure about bad _men_. Plural.

In her distraction, she forgot to pay attention to the men in front of her, let out a yelp of surprise and pain when a hand gripped her left backpack strap and _yanked _her forward. The strap dug into her shoulder, and pain shot through it and down her arm. She stumbled forward, and grabbing at the arm holding her to right herself, but found herself pulled up to her toes, and a red, angry face leering over her.

While in foster care and on the run, Ximena hadn't actually ever really run into any violent drunks. Stupid drunks, but never violent. But before New York she had a cousin. His name had been Ernesto, and he was 12 years older than her, and once, at a family party, he had gotten very drunk, and very angry, and it took two of her _tios_ and her dad to get him to leave. He wasn't allowed back, but Ximena remembered the look in his eyes. She couldn't _feel_ then, not really, but she could now.

Blind _rage_, hot and offensive, rolled off the man, and Ximena sucked in a breath, not thinking as she began to _squeeze_ his arm. She'd break it, had to break it, because she knew he'd try to break her first.

She meant to, at least, but froze at the sight of a flash of something small and silver in the corner of her eye. _Knife_. He had a _knife_.

If falling off a ladder would bust her shoulder, she didn't know what a knife could do to her.

She did not think this through.

Before she could spiral into a panic, before the knife had a chance to move on her, before she could squeeze her hand and snap the arm, she _felt_ him. It was a ripple, shifting so quickly she almost missed it: _concern, anger, calculated calm._ And then there was _nothing_. And she knew then that someone was about to get very _hurt_.

An arm wrapped around her waist, and she let out a yelp as she was pulled out of the man's grip. She wasn't set down so much as dropped, and she stumbled, falling on her butt on the ground. Almost as soon as she was down, hands grabbed at her, and she looked back to see that it was Marty, bloody and bruised, pulling her back and out of the way. She let him.

In front of her, she heard a strangled cry of pain, and she looked up to see Crow Man holding the man's arm at an impossible angle. The knife fell to the ground with a clatter, and the cry was cut off with a metallic _thunk_. Ximena wasn't sure if he had punched or elbowed the man in the face, but either way he fell, and he did not get back up.

There was a still silence in the alley for a split second as the other men realized what had just happened. And when it processed, the three remaining men jumped.

Ximena could barely follow what happened next. Crow Man - though it didn't _feel _like Crow Man anymore, as though he shifted into another man altogether - moved with practiced ease as he side stepped one of the men, and somehow redirected him to crash into another bad man hard enough to drop them both. She didn't catch what he did to the last man, but it must have hurt, and something must have broken. She knew what broken bones sounded like.

One of the men tried to scramble up, reaching for the dropped knife, but before Ximena could give a warning, Crow Man was taking two steps toward him, grabbed him by the front of the shirt, and pulled him up.

He spoke, but too quiet and quick for Ximena to catch. The tone was low and deadly, and not at all like how he's spoken to her. She did not have to reach to feel the man he held. Crow Man only spoke a few short words, but the effect was profound. _Terror_. So strong it made Ximena's hands shake and her throat go dry, and her eyes burn with tears that weren't hers.

Not even the fear she had felt from Helen and Marty made her react like that. It must have been because the man was drunk.

She swallowed hard and banished the emotions as Helen took her chance to dart across the alley to where she sat with Marty. Crow Man shoved the man away, and he fell in a heap, looking up at him with wide, panicked eyes.

"_Go_."

The man crawled away, slipping as he tried to climb to his feet. He stumbled twice before finding his footing and taking off, leaving his unconscious friends behind.

Crow Man took a step back, and seemed to take a breath, and Ximena _felt_ the shift once more. His emotions returned, muted though they were, and she picked up the immediate concern as he turned to face her and the couple with her.

"Okay?" he asked, as though he hadn't just beat the everloving shit out of four people without breaking a sweat. Ximena blinked up at him, and Helen tugged at her, trying to pull her closer to the couple than to Crow Man. She was still scared; Ximena felt it, and she knew what it meant. She thought Crow Man was just as bad as the men that had been hurting them.

Ximena nodded. "You okay?" she asked back, and this time he blinked, unprepared for the question.

"Yes," he said, and Ximena felt that barely there affection she had felt before. She moved to stand, and next to her Helen did the same.

Crow Man all but herded her away from the remaining unconscious men, away from the couple as well. She looked at them.

"Are you okay?" she asked, and knew for a fact they'd be lying if they said yes. Marty's eye was swollen, and his lip was busted. Helen shook.

"_Stay_," Helen said instead of answering, holding out a hand Ximena. She was eyeing Crow Man with distrust, with distaste. "_Don't go with him - he's no good. He's dangerous_," she said, and Ximena drew back in offense at the words, shifting closer to Crow Man, and found herself grabbing at his sleeve. He let her, not pulling away as she thought he might have before.

_How can she say that? He saved them! She doesn't even know him!_

It hit her then, as well, that she did not know them either, and that they did not know her. She shook her head, and behind her Crow Man's muted emotions became easier to read. _Frustration, distrust _of his own, but also a hint of _guilt_. Did he know what she was saying?

When Ximena didn't move away on her own, Helen reached out, hand snapping out to latch onto her wrist and tug her away.

"_No_." Ximena sidestepped the grasp, and slapped Helen's hand away. There was hurt in Helen's eyes, and she wondered if it was because of her words or because she had actually maybe hit too hard. "_I don't want to."_ She looked up at Crow Man, and he was watching the scene with keen eyes. There was something sharp in his expression, and Ximena could see a sort of warning as he seemed to shift again, only just barely tapping into whoever he had become when he took down those men before.

Ximena tugged his sleeve.

"Let's go," she told him. "They'll be okay."

She didn't actually know if they'd be okay. But Helen's distrust and Marty's silence did not sit well with Ximena, nor did Helen's pleading for her to stay with them.

Crow Man did not respond for a second, and then gave a curt nod. "Okay."

They walked away, Ximena still gripping Crow Man's sleeve, and ignored Helen's calls for her to come back.

* * *

It had been the Soldier that took down the men in the alley, and looking down at the girl next to him, Crow Man could not find himself to feel guilty.

She had not spoken since leaving the couple in the alley, and while he wanted to voice his frustration at her for running ahead to something unplanned, he decided against it. She seemed irritated enough as it was, the fear he had noticed before now gone. He did not inquire about her wellbeing beside his "Okay?" in the alley; a quick visual assessment made it clear she escaped unscathed.

Still, he replayed the scene in his head as they returned to the warehouse - that worthless waste of space drunk holding up the girl, a knife in his hand. He hadn't thought, had only just processed what was played out before him, and then he was gone. There had been no trace of the girl's Crow Man. It had only been the Soldier.

It was miraculous, he realized, that he had not killed them all.

The girl pulled open the door to the warehouse, and gave a lackluster greeting to the dust and supposed ghost. He closed the door behind them, but not before giving a quick sweep of the darkness before them.

He gave the stairs a glance before making his way to sit near the girl and her pallet. The thought of having even the familiar distance of the warehouse now, after what had happened, made his gut twist in a way it never had in his memory before coming face to face with Steven Rogers again.

She would have to suffer his presence.

She said nothing though, as he set his bag down and sat next to it. Dirty light from a back alley lamp streamed in, muted by the dust stained windows and small holes in the side paneling. With that, coupled with his own enhanced eyesight, he saw her glance at him before scurrying to her cabinets to put away the things in her bag. He noted where she stashed her things, what compartments each went in.

When she returned, she plopped down with a huff. A moment passed, neither of them saying anything. Finally, she spoke.

"I… might have froze back there."

He arched a brow, and then realized she probably could not see it. "Did you intend to fight them all?"

She threw out an arm. "Those jerks were beating up on Helen and Marty for no reason! I couldn't _not_ do anything!" She huffed, and in a tone that worried him (from it, he knew she thought her statement true) went on to say, "I coulda done it if that jerk hadn'ta had the knife."

He said nothing to counter it; the girl would get defensive, and in turn shut down any conversation. Perhaps, given how drunk the men had been, she could have toppled over one or two of the men. But even drunk, those men were much bigger than her.

_Steve was bad about picking fights with people bigger than him too_.

Crow Man blinked. The thought came from nowhere; was almost intrusive in nature. Still, he knew it to be the truth. Not a false memory. He needed to write it down.

The girl spoke before he could get his bag. "Were..." she paused. "Were you not scared of the knife?" She pulled her small bear into her lap as she said that, an unconscious, self-soothing act.

He knew anyone else would have been, at the very least, apprehensive at the sight of the knife in the alley. He, however, was not anyone else, and the drunk was lucky he did not find the blade embedded in his jugular and ripped out.

It seemed even the Soldier knew to show restraint around the girl.

Even still, he knew it to be a lie if he said he had not been afraid of the sight of the knife. He had - a split second of cold fear lodged in his throat reminiscent of what he felt on the airship when he realized that he _knew_ Rogers in another life. It had not been for him, but for the girl, reckless and slight as she was. She had been hurt enough with her shoulder. The fear had given way to rage, however, and then the cold nothingness of the Soldier.

She waited for his answer.

"Yes," he said, deciding honesty would suit him fine for now. She squinted at him.

"You didn't look scared."

"A little," he remedied, and held up his index finger and thumb a centimeter or so apart.

The girl wrinkled her nose, and then scratched at her cheek, looking away. "I got kinda scared too. Just a little," she added in a rush.

Crow Man felt as though this was a vulnerability she would not offer often. Still, he could not stop himself.

"Because you are a little girl."

Her response was instantaneous. She lashed out, using her little bear as a bat, and hit him on the head with it. It didn't hurt in any way, and it bounced off lightly. Crow Man imagined he had been attacked with many things - he could not recall if he had ever been hit with a teddy bear.

"I'm not a _little girl_!" She snapped, and her act coupled with her indignation startled a harsh, choked, parody of a laugh from him. It caught in his throat, and the girl squawked at the sound. "Don't laugh!"

Would she demand that of him, he wondered, if she knew he had not laughed in over seventy years?

"I'm sorry," he said, and did not feel nearly as apologetic as he should have.

"Whatever," she muttered. "And just so you know, I'm thirteen." She paused. "Almost. Next week."

"You're twelve."

He knew the girl was young. He shouldn't have been surprised. Still, it made him… ache at the realization at just how young she was.

"Not after next week," she said. She seemed to wait for him to offer some sort of information of his own.

Based on the information pamphlet he got at the museum, he answered. "I'm ninety-seven," he offered. She huffed.

"You're not funny."

He let her believe it to be a joke. Silence fell between them again, and he thought about what the woman had said to the girl. How she had begged her to stay, and how the girl had drawn away from her. The woman was right when she called him dangerous, and was right when she had called him a bad man. And perhaps she was right to want the girl to stay with them.

_They cannot protect her_. The thought was immediately followed with, _but I may only put her in danger._

He knew HYDRA would come for him. They might not yet, not before dealing with the immediate backlash of their exposure to the world, but they would search for him soon enough. They would send other Soldiers after him. Trackers. And he would have to be gone from DC before then. Would have to disappear. _Leave the girl behind._

"Why are you being weird?" the girl demanded, drawing him from his thoughts. He looked at her, and she stared at him so intently he swore her eyes were backlit in the darkness. He cocked his head to the side in lieu of an answer and she scowled. "You're being a weird kinda quiet. What's wrong?"

He could tell her it was nothing, but something told him she would catch the lie. The girl had proven more perceptive than he had given her credit for.

"You did not stay with the woman. Why?"

"Oh." The girl made a face, wrinkling her nose. "She was being rude. She said you were dangerous."

"That I was a bad man."

She nodded, and then narrowed her eyes at him. "Could you understand her this whole time?!" she demanded, and he blinked at her. He nodded, and she let out a huff of laughter. "Since when do you know Spanish?!"

"A while."

"And you never said so?" She seemed offended that he would keep such a thing from her, but went on to ask, "Do you know any other languages?"

He knew many, but knew that to name them all would spark skepticism in the girl. In any case, the language of his primary handlers' was Russian. "Russian," he said.

"Can you teach me?" she asked hopefully, and the request made him go cold and rigid, not unlike how he felt when she said she would like to sleep in his cryostasis chamber. Because it _was_ the language of his primary handlers for so many years, because it was used as a weapon against him as easily as any other, he was never particularly fond of it, never mind how fluent he was in it.

But rather than snap as he had when she brought up the chamber, he simply shook his head.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Not a good language for you," he answered in a tone that left no room for further discussion. Before she could take offense, he went on to change the subject. "Did you really not stay with the woman because she was _rude_?"

"Ain't that reason enough? Anyway, I don't really... know Helen and Marty. And she called you _bad_."

"If I am?"

She snorted. "'You're not _bad_, you dumb dumb. You're just kinda… scrambled right now. It's fine, Humpty Dumpty, we'll figure out how to put you back together. Even if it means I gotta go back to that stupid museum."

He was… touched by her words, and a bit apprehensive at the implication that they would stay close to each other long enough for him to seek out his past and make sense of it. He knew he could not stay with her forever, nor could he bring her along with him.

But for now, he was content to stay with her in the warehouse. He was content to be Crow Man, and was content to keep watch that night as he had the nights before.

Outside, the patter of a light rain began to fall on the rusted roof above them.


	9. they might've passed a pleasant evening

**Can I offer you a nice chapter in these trying times?**

* * *

Ximena used to love the rain, rare as it was. But now, the rain was a nuisance. It was better than the gross heat, but she was still stuck inside, not daring to go back out and get wet and risk getting sick. When she was younger, and back home, and with parents that would make her take warm showers afterwards, she would sometimes make mud puddles in the rain, or follow the trail of water that flowed down her driveway. She had loved the rain then. Then she had someone to take care of her.

Now, it was far too cold. There was no warm shower in the warehouse, nor anyone to remind her to take one. Crow Man, but she felt that _she_ would have to remind him, not vice versa.

There was lightning now, and with the lightning thunder and fast winds that slammed against the warehouse and made the walls rattle. The warehouse had always felt secure, for the most part. Had offered protection with its heavy door and metal walls and broken windows. It kept the bad out. But with the storm, with the cracks of light and bursts of thunder that sounded too much like otherworldly gunfire, she found herself not in the warehouse, but rather thrown back to the day fire rained in New York City. The shop she and her parents had taken shelter in as the sky split open shook just as hard as the thin walls of her warehouse, and despite how hard she had her hands clamped over her ears, she swore she still heard the chittering and shrieking of the Chitauri.

Ximena didn't care for the rain, nor the lightning and thunder that always seemed to join it. She hadn't since she had been pulled out of the rubble alone. It may have been sunny that day, but the storms that followed never failed to pull her back.

Crow Man had retreated back under his stairs, leaving Ximena huddled on her pallet of blankets in her corner of the room. Neither had been particularly talkative during the day, and a somber sort of silence had followed them into the darkness. Ximena had burrowed under her blankets, and pulled the hood of her jacket up and pulled the strings tight. It did little to make her feel more secure, and the strangling grip she had on Oso-Osito didn't do much good for her either. With every burst of thunder, she felt as though she was crashing back to that day in New York, felt as though the door of the warehouse would burst open and there'd be an army waiting to bring the building back down on her.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the memories before they sucked her in completely like they had the year following the attack, but all the action did was make them more clear in her mind's eye. She knew if she did not shake out of it soon, she'd find herself back in a waking nightmare. She needed a distraction. She needed-

Ximena sat up, keeping her blanket pulled over her head like a hood over her hood, and looked into the darkness to where she was pretty sure Crow Man sat. She _reached_, and there was that same sort of _blankness_ about him. Still, tapping into it eased the tightness in her chest. She wished, not for the first time, that she could be like Crow Man and just… just shove everything down and away.

"Crow Man," she called out, her voice strained and catching in her throat. There was no answer, and she swallowed hard. "Are you awake?"

A beat of silence.

"Yes."

"Okay." Ximena didn't really think she'd get this far, and didn't really plan on any conversation points. Thunder rumbled up above, and she ducked her head at the sound. She felt a quirk of curiosity which wasn't hers overriding her fear.

"Does the storm bother you?" Crow Man asked, and Ximena nodded, and then wondered if he could see the action.

"The thunder," she found herself saying, "too much like bombs and guns." She took a breath to try and ease the tightness in her chest. She didn't expect Crow Man to answer, and so his response from the darkness startled her.

"Yes, it is." His tone was contemplative, and remorseful. Ximena figured that if he was military like she thought him to be, then he knew what those things sound like, and to have him affirm her thoughts made her feel… not necessarily better, but validated. She wondered, not for the first time and likely not for the last, who he was before appearing in her warehouse. What had he done? Why was he alone?

She didn't ask these things; for all she knew, he didn't know the answer to these things. As often as she would see him jotting down lines in the journal she had given him, she didn't know if any of it actually helped.

Lightning flashed above, and several seconds later, thunder followed. Ximena squeezed her eyes shut.

"My mom told me once that if you count the seconds between the lightning and thunder, that's how many miles away the storm is," she said. "But I think just waiting for it, not knowing when it's coming, I think that makes it worse." _Anticipation_ was the word - it had been a vocab word in her reading class right before she had run away. The _anticipation_ made it worse.

"Why-" a pause, only just, an easy to miss microsecond if you weren't paying attention- "are you not with your mother?"

Oh, this was not a question she had _anticipated_.

"She's _dead_." The words came out automatically, and tinged only just with a defense - Ximena had had plenty of practice with them thanks to nosy classmates over the past two years. "Why aren't you with _your_ mother?" she countered, the way she would if another foster kid would badger her. A fight usually followed, but Ximena figured Crow Man wasn't in the mood to throw down.

"She's dead," he replied, borrowing her words, but not her inflection. "I'm sorry about your mother," he went on, and Ximena figured she could appreciate the sincerity in his voice.

"'S alright," she said. "I'm sorry about your mom too." She knew that if she let the conversation lull now, she wouldn't be able to pick it back up, and so she went on, "don't you got any other family?"

There was a beat, as though he was trying to decide whether or not he was going to answer. As though he wasn't sure about the answer he was going to give. "I have a sister. Rebecca. I don't know where she is."

"You could facebook her," Ximena offered.

"I'm not good for her." It sounded as though he wanted to add something to that, but refrained, and she would have wondered more on it if not for her exasperation at his notion of himself.

"You don't know that," she said with a huff. "Just 'cause you're a little fuzzy doesn't mean you're _bad_. That's what my doctor lady said. Things and people that are familiar can help you get better. So you should google your sister, see if you can find her."

He hummed before asking, "Do you not have any more family?"

She had uncles and aunts in Arizona, and scores of cousins, but they had left her alone in New York, and so she didn't like to think about them.

"I, uh. I gotta grandma in Mexico. But the judge wouldn't let her take me with her." She almost went on to mention the letters adn phone calls, and how they had stopped, and decided against it. "I was… I was trying to get to her before I ended up here."

"Mexico is far to go alone."

"I know that _now_."

She heard an amused huff, and wrinkled her nose in response, but said nothing else. She had already revealed more than she had planned to, but she blamed it on the mood the storm had put her in.

* * *

The girl made no mention in the week that passed about her fear during the night of the storm, nor that of her dead mother, and, he assumed, dead father. Nor did she pry about his own revelation about his sister. In all honesty, he did not know what he would say if she did ask. He had next to no memory of the girl he called Rebecca. She had dark hair, like his, and bright eyes, but he remembered nothing else of her appearance. Nothing of her personality. Was she meek? Was she rambunctious, like his girl here at the warehouse? Had she mourned his death when he never returned from the war he had no memory of?

When he thought of her, his phantom of a sister, a faint pain speared his chest - did he miss her? Was he fond of her in his youth? He was sure he did, or else he would not feel this pain.

He hoped he had been a good brother to her.

"If I stay in this stupid place any longer, I'm gonna _die!_" the girl wailed, and Crow Man looked up from his journal - purple and be-slothed as it was - to see the girl pushing herself up from where she had been spread out on her pallet of blankets. They had not gone out into the city since the men attacked the couple in the alley. First it had been the rain that had kept them in, and then the somber mood they both seemed to have been in. As the girl stood, he noted how she seemed to favor her right arm, which would not have been cause to worry, if not for how he had noticed the first week he had been with her that she was left handed. Her shoulder was bothering her then.

"Does your shoulder hurt?" he asked, standing as well. She froze, a slight pause in her step that would have been easy to miss for someone who hadn't spent the last month with her.

"It's _fine_."

A bold-faced lie. The dislocated shoulder would take weeks to fully heal; of course she would still be having discomfort. "_Nena_."

"Crow Man." She made a face at him as she started past him to the door. She tossed her bag over her right shoulder, and threw up two fingers in the display of a peace sign. "I'm outskis," she said brightly. "It's Thursday!"

Ah. "Nico is working."

"Nico is working!"

"And your shoulder is hurting."

"And my shoulder is-" She stopped short and narrowed her eyes at him. "_Fine_."

He opened his mouth to argue, but stopped himself. Why should he be bothered if she wanted to hurt herself further. Let her learn on her own. _Because you got yourself attached_, a voice in the back of his head hummed smugly. _Why else haven't you gotten out of town yet? It's been a month, Soldier._

_**I am not the Soldier any longer. The girl calls me Crow Man. HYDRA does not control me anymore.**_

_Doesn't mean they stopped looking for you._

"Crow Man?"

He blinked to see the girl looking at him, brows furrowed. She had expected him to repeat her words, just as she had repeated his. He offered what he hoped was a reassuring look; at the very least, he hoped it wouldn't put her on edge.

"And your shoulder is fine," he repeated, deciding, against his better judgment, that now was not the time to worry about being found. "I will go with you," he went on, and she rolled her eyes. "Just in case."

"You're probably stinky too."

He let his shoulders drop. It seemed there would be no winning against the girl today. "And I am most definitely stinky too," he admitted, and she let out a bright laugh. He supposed there was nothing wrong with letting her win, just this once.

As they left the warehouse, she let him open and shut the door, and he noted how she would roll her shoulder now and then, wincing as she did. As much as he wanted to ask if she had been taking acetaminophen as he had told her to, he held his tongue. That she was in pain was answer enough. In any case, she must have sensed it in that way she noticed many little things, and she glared at them as they stepped out into the street.

"I'm _fine_," she told him. He hummed and stepped around her, corralling her into the inside of the sidewalk. If she noticed, she said nothing.

"I said nothing."

"You were _thinkin'_ it," she accused him. "I _felt _it." She put such emphasis on the word _felt_ that he thought maybe he was missing something.

"Did you?"

She opened her mouth to answer, only to snap it shut and narrow her eyes at him, as though he almost tricked her into revealing some protected secret. She turned her nose up away from him and took several steps ahead. He shook his head, feeling a ghost of a smile playing at his lips at her actions.

_Punk_.

He let the girl have her distance, knowing she would return to his side once the infraction was forgotten. There were more people out this week than there had been when they last ventured into the city, but he stayed only a step or two behind the girl; he still kept an eye on her, and was close enough that the distance didn't particularly matter.

He would reach the girl before anything else could, and he was content with this knowledge.

Then, when he was just beginning to forget his concern from earlier, when he was just about ready to _gloat_ at the voice in his head for its paranoia, he heard it.

A quick, two tone whistle. Low, then high. Far away, barely audible.

He stopped. Only for a second.

_They found you_.

He listened for the answering call. There was none. He narrowed his eyes, and began to move again.

The girl somehow noticed his pause despite being in front of him, and she herself paused long enough for him to reach her side again. He felt her looking up at him curiously, as though trying to puzzle out him sudden discomfort.

"Crow Man?"

"It is nothing," he said, but could not force himself to try to reassure her further. He had no way of knowing if what he felt was real or not. If what he had heard was real. All he knew was that his instinct had never led him astray before.

_They found you_.

_**They did not**_.

_They found you, and they found you with the Girl._ The voice was not smug as it had been in the warehouse. It carried an undercurrent of urgency. He clenched his jaw and balled up his left fist; the machinery in the arm whirled, too quiet for anyone but himself to hear.

_**They cannot have her. They did not find me. There is no one left to find me.**_

The thought was childishly stubborn, and felt false, dangerously so. Someone watched them. He could feel it in his chest, in the small of his back and up his spine. He could not stay out in the open, but he could not leave the girl alone, and she would not understand. What would he tell her?

_What will you do, Soldier? They are here, you know they are here._

He had no answer for the voice.

* * *

She felt the shift as soon as it happened. Crow Man had been quiet on the walk to the YMCA - he was quiet as a rule, but now there was something _off_ about this quiet. Not aloof like he had defaulted on when he first appeared in her warehouse, but _strained_. He had been nostalgic back at the warehouse, and that had been half the reason Ximena had prompted this trip into the city. But now… Now something preoccupied him.

Now he worried her.

She watched as he tugged his cap down further over his face and ducked his head, adopting a slouch. He was _hiding_. Despite having told her that there was nothing to worry about, there was clearly something wrong. She glanced around, and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Just people going about their days. She _reached_, and immediately pulled back in - there was too much, and it overwhelmed her, nearly knocking her down. Too many people having bad days, being annoyed and irritated, too many people with their good days, and the clash made her feel sick. She reeled back in, and clung to Crow Man and his not quite muted paranoia. His emotions she could handle, even though they made her fingers fidget and her palms itch.

"Crow Man," she said, and he looked down at her, his eyes cold and hard, almost glazed over, before softening, focusing. "We can go back if you want," she said. "We don't gotta go this week."

He looked to actually consider it and for how he was acting, Ximena wouldn't blame him. She could probably walk him back and then head off on her own later. But he shook his head, and Ximena could still _feel_ the uncertainty within him. She decided not to push it.

They continued to walk down the sidewalk, and Ximena saw what looked like a bargain store - not a store she had ever gone to, but had seen in passing often enough. It had never really piqued her interest, but maybe… She looked over at Crow Man, and noted how he would clench and unclench his hand, and she swore she could hear a mechanical whirl coming from beneath his sleeve. Bursts of _anxiety_ would pop off of him, as though he was struggling to shove it back down, and he stared hard up ahead.

She wasn't the only one to notice this, because people were all but running out of his way as they made their way down the sidewalk.

"Hey, Crow Man," she said, and when she reached for him, she reached slowly, and made sure he could see her moving toward him. She tugged at his sleeve, and he went tense before blinking down at her. "You wanna go lookit at what that store's got?" she asked, pointing to the shop. It was across the street, but people jaywalked all the time, so she figured that wouldn't be a problem.

It seemed to take him a second to process what she had said - the tightness she felt from him eased, only just. Maybe he seemed to realize it as the out she meant it to be, and he gave a solemn nod.

"Cool! Let's go," she said, and released his sleeve. She found herself held back, however, and looked down to see that Crow Man had grabbed her hand in his own. She blinked down at it, noting that it wasn't his metal hand, and that it was warm despite the glove. When she looked back up at him, he seemed to be making a point to not look at her.

She gave his hand a tug. "Come on, you big baby," she said, and pulled him after her as she stepped into the street. There was a flush of _amusement_, but Crow Man said nothing, and if he wasn't going to make a big deal about it, then neither was she.

They didn't get hit by a car crossing the street, so Ximena considered the expedition a success. When they got to the store front, Crow Man hesitated right in front of the door, holding Ximena back with him. He stared intently into the store, and Ximena felt her chest tighten with his _paranoia_. But people only started to look at them funny when they didn't walk in, and Ximena didn't _feel_ anything wrong, Crow Man aside.

"Ain't nothing wrong with the store, Crow Man," she told him quietly, and finally he let her walk in, and released her hand. She knew better, though, than to wander off immediately with him being as nervous as he was.

The store wasn't busy - there were only a handful of other shoppers, and only two employees that Ximena could see. There were various clothing racks in the middle of the store, some shelves of knicknacks towards the back, and a sign reading BOOKS (and below that, EMERGENCY EXIT) pointing to a back room. Her hands pricked at the sight of it.

No one paid them any mind as they stepped down the trio of steps into the store - not even when Ximena stumbled over the last one. The only thing that saved her from crashing into one of the clothes racks was Crow Man grabbing her backpack and jerking her back up to her feet. The strap of her bag tugged at her shoulder, and she bit back a cry of pain; she wasn't about to let him win their argument about her shoulder. The hand on her backpack went still. She could tell by how she found herself locked in place, and when she looked back at him, she saw that it had been his metal hand he had caught her with. He dropped her, and looked away.

"S'alright," she told him despite the dull throb of pain, and he made no comment in return. "I'm wanna go look at the books," she told him, and she felt _alarm_ as he looked past her to the area the books were stowed away. Still skittish then. "Look, the guys' clothes is kinda by them," she pointed out, and really, they weren't _that_ close. But they were, she noticed, in a place that offered him a view of both the books and the front of the store. He had no real reason to miss anything.

"It'll be _fine_," she told him, giving his arm a reassuring pat. "Look, this place is small enough that you can see everything, and I'm just gonna be over there. You'll be good."

He looked down at her and she could see in his eyes that he very much did not want her to leave his side. He glanced around, narrowing his eyes at the other shoppers, but seemed to decide that they were harmless, because he gave a curt nod.

"I'll be good," he said, and his tone was flat and unconvincing. Ximena almost didn't want to leave him. But. Books. And maybe if she left him to work out whatever it was that had spooked him, he'd realize there was nothing wrong to begin with. "You'll be good?"

She shot finger guns at him. "I'll be good."

There was a flicker of warmth in her chest of amusement that wasn't hers, but it was snuffed out too quick for her to really enjoy it. He didn't feel like he was going to lose his head anymore though, and so she gave him one more smile before making her way to the back of the store.

Ximena didn't have money for books - she had to save what she had for food she couldn't steal and the laundromat. But she liked to look at them, and maybe if there wasn't a camera back there and there was a title she really wanted, she could always slip it into her overalls and hope no one noticed.

The book room wasn't so much a room as it was a wide hallway that led to a heavy door. A red sign above it made it clear that it was the emergency exit, and that customers weren't supposed to touch it. In the far corner, a small security camera blinked, and Ximena sighed at the sight of it. There would be no sneaking of books then.

There were a lot of old mom romance novels tucked in the shelves, so Ximena figured she wouldn't be sneaking a book even if the camera hadn't been there. Well, maybe she'd get a laugh out of Crow Man if she found one that was ridiculous enough.

The idea was promptly forgotten when she, thankfully, found the kid books. They were tucked toward the back, moving her almost completely out of sight from where she was sure Crow Man was at, being a creeper.

He knew where she was though, and it wasn't as though anyone could get past him without him noticing.

Ximena gave one last look out into the store, and moseyed on over to the back.

Most of the books, she found, were too _baby-ish_ for her. Elementary school level. There were some _Goosebumps_, and she found a _Fear Street_ book, but she never really liked those. There was a _Harry Potter_ one too, and the one about that little mouse that saves a princess.

The one with the dragon on the cover caught her eye.

"That looks like a fun book."

Ximena jumped, and the lady who had snuck up on her let out a soft laugh. Ximena blinked up at her, wondering where in the world she had come from - she hadn't _felt_ her, and she hadn't been out in the store when she had walked in with Crow Man.

She was young and pretty, with a heart shaped face and soft features, and was dressed like she belonged in Cathedral Heights, not Foggy Bottom. Her blond hair was pulled up in a tight bun, and her smile didn't meet her eyes.

She was not the kind of person who talked to kids like Ximena.

Ximena glanced down at the book she had in her hands - it was called _Dragon Rider_, and seemed okay.

"Yeah," she said. The lady was standing closer than she needed to be, and Ximena shifted back a bit, closer to the back door than she wanted to be. She tried to look past her without being too obvious, but her view was blocked.

"Maybe you can help me find a book for myself," the lady said, a faint drawl in her voice, and Ximena wanted very much to _not_ do that. She leaned in a bit, and Ximena gripped the book in her hands. "There's a better book shop with a cafe on the next block over," the lady said conspiratorially, like she was sharing some divine secret, and now the alarm bells were really going off.

Ximena _reached_, and really she should have done this the moment the woman showed up, and recoiled immediately at the _emptiness_ she felt. Ximena had never felt a truly apathetic person before, and truth be told, it terrified her. There might as well have been a corpse standing in front of her. She swallowed hard.

She needed to go. Right then.

"_Nena_."

Ximena looked up past the lady, and she was sure relief coated her face when she saw Crow Man standing at the hallway's entrance. His expression was stony, and she wondered if he heard the lady trying to tempt her away. She felt the shift in him as easily as if she had gone through it herself, something twisting and building into something so unlike Crow Man - _it's whoever he was in the alley_, Ximena realized. That man had been ruthless, had acted without thought, and had been absolutely unbelievably _cool_. Now though… Now there was a dangerous glint in his eyes as he stared down at the lady that blocked his way to Ximena.

The lady's smile froze on her face, and she sighed, straightening. The way she held herself was different than when she approached Ximena - she seemed bigger now, seemed to match Crow Man's alert pose. Ximena took a step back at the dark look that flared in her eyes, and looked to Crow Man.

"Oh, солдат, I was so close to having my turn at hide and seek," the lady sang, and Ximena drew back in shock; gone was the soft drawl in her voice. In its place was a different, harsher accent - European? Russian? The woman rolled her head as she turned to face Crow Man, and his expression darkened dangerously when he saw her face. Waves of barely contained _rage_ twinged with … with _fear_ rolled off of him, and it nearly overwhelmed Ximena at how he didn't shove these emotions away as he had all his others.

His gaze darted down to Ximena, then just past her to the door behind her. His metal hand kept clenching and unclenching, and between the absolute emptiness of the woman and the mash of chaos from Crow Man, Ximena felt as though something very bad was about to happen. "_Nena_," he repeated, voice stilted and leaving no room for her to argue his next order. "Go."

"Wha-"

"_Go_."

The voice came from Crow Man, but the man standing in front of her was not _her_ Crow Man. He was someone else altogether. Cold and calculated and _dark._

And she did not need to be told again.

But before she could turn tail and run, the woman was moving.

She grabbed Ximena by the front of her overalls and, with a strength that didn't match her frame, slammed her back into the shelf. Pain bloomed as her head snapped back and connected with the wooden frame, and she didn't know if the burn in her eyes was from unshed tears or the gold bleeding into her irises. With gold tinted vision - which, it didn't used to do that - Ximena saw Crow Man sweep forward, saw a metallic flash in the lady's other hand coming at her, and in her panic and fear, Ximena fell back on her tried and true method of ending fights with bullies.

She _pushed_.

* * *

**verdict's out on how nice this chapter actually was...**


	10. had shit not gotten real

_The Hound __**protect the girl **__dispatch the Hou- __**protect the GIRL**_

Everything went to shit, and the Soldier would have taken the knife from the Hound and driven it into her throat for even _thinking_ of raising it at the girl, but when faced with the choice _**protect the girl **__dispatch the Hound_ he found it wasn't a choice at all.

Before he could reach the Hound, the girl opened her eyes wide _gold why are they gold why do they glow_ and the Soldier nearly stumbled, legs nearly giving out and breath catching in his throat with the sudden invasion of overwhelming _fear_ he knew was not his. The Hound felt it too, she must have, despite never having felt a damn thing before in her life, and her hesitance was all the opening the girl needed to shove her hands out in a push.

The Hound flew back, crashing into the shelves that lined the opposite wall. The Soldier stared down at her prone form before looking down at the girl. She panted, leaning back on the shelf. Blood dripped from her arm - the knife had nicked her - and when she looked up at him, her eyes glowed golden.

"What the _fuck_!"

The Soldier did not wait to look back at who had spoken. He grabbed the girl, ignoring her yelp of surprise as he tossed her over his shoulder _her head she hit her head be gentle __**there is no time for gentle**_ and ran.

The Hound would not stay down long. He was lucky she stayed down as long as she did. The best way he knew to protect the girl was to get her _away_, and then, when he was certain she'd be safe, he'd have to reassess the situation. He'd have to deal with the Hound.

A Hound. Of course. Out of all of the assets in HYDRA's damned collections, it had been a _Hound_ that found him. And he knew that where there was one, the other was no doubt lurking nearby.

"Crow Man, stop, _stop_, I'ma pu-"

She began to retch.

_Shit_.

He set her down, and she stumbled away, doubling over and finishing what she had started on his back. They hadn't gotten very far, not near far enough, but he knew the risk of moving her before she was ready.

She trembled when she finished, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"What the _hell_," she whined, and her voice carried a genuine distress he had only heard when her shoulder had been dislocated. She looked up at him with wide eyes - brown again, brown and angry and frightened.

The Soldier thought nothing of the fear in her eyes. He had his mission

_**Objective: Protect The Girl**_

and he would carry it out, regardless of how she felt, regardless of the color of her eyes or the strength she hid.

"We can't stay," he said, and her face twisted as he pulled off his backpack and jacket. Luckily, the bag had been mostly spared from the girl's sick, and he only needed to wipe the little away before discarding the jacket. Walking around with a puked on jacket didn't exactly let them blend in the way they needed to.

"What- what do you mean?" the girl asked, and there was a tremble in her voice. She cradled her arm, and blood dripped from the cut onto the ground. A trail to follow. He needed to bandage her arm. "Who was that lady? Why did she _attack_ me?!"

There was no time to stand around and answer these questions, never mind how much she was owed the answers. They needed to move before the Hounds found them.

"We have to _move_." He used more force than he should have with her, but he had years of experience to know that force worked. He reached for the girl, and she flinched away, slapping his hand away, hard enough for it to have _stung_.

"_No!"_

His breath hitched. There it was, that foreign fear, the panic making his heart pound the way it only did when he was about to be put back in the ice.

It was the emotions, not the slap, that had him staggering back. It was her eyes that kept him back.

Gold. The girl's eyes were gold again, shining beneath unshed tears. Her own breath caught in her throat, and she stumbled away, cradling her arm tighter. She made herself smaller, and it hit the Soldier all at once. It was _her _panic. _Her _fear.

_She's a child. She has every right to be terrified._

That, however, didn't account for how she was somehow able to force it onto others. The Soldier didn't consider himself any kind of authority when it came to children, but he was pretty certain they shouldn't have been able to shove genetically enhanced assassins into bookshelves either.

He stared down at her, brow furrowed as he tried to puzzle out how she was able to do these things.

She drew away from him, realization creeping in her features as the gold drained from her eyes.

Was this her secret? Was this why she was alone?

He didn't get a chance to ask. The girl turned, ready to run. When he reached for her, called for her to stop,

_**Objective: Protect the Girl**_

she pushed at him again. And she must have used as much force as she did with the Hound. He flew back, and when he landed, he landed _hard_, the breath knocked from his lungs and his head smacking against the asphalt.

_Maybe_, the unhelpfully smug voice said, _you should have made time to tell the truth, and she wouldn't have knocked you ass over head_.

The Soldier pushed himself up, and with blurry vision saw the girl standing still, and radiating that _fear_ of hers. Despite this hidden strength, despite her previous bravado, she was still very much a terrified child.

A terrified child that wasted no time in turning on her heels and dashing away.

_Ah. Shit_.

* * *

Ximena ran.

She ran blindly, desperately, away from the void that had been that woman in the shop before it could swallow her whole. From the cold, dark other that Crow Man had become, the sharpness in his voice as he tried to order her, tried to grab at her, and she knew - she _knew_ \- he wouldn't have hurt her. He was still Crow Man, beneath those severe eyes and hard grip.

But still, Ximena ran.

She darted past the people on the sidewalk when she made it out of the alley. Pain shot through her shoulder and down her arm when she slammed into a man, sending him sprawling into the street. She should have stopped then, maybe. To make sure she hadn't broken him.

Still, Ximena ran.

She dipped into the alley she knew so well, nearly tumbling over as she turned into it. Her shoes skid out from under her, and she barely managed to right herself as she scurried inside. It seemed darker, now, as she moved, nevermind the hot sun shining up above.

"_Nena!_" She nearly stopped before she realized it wasn't Crow Man - It had been Helen's raspy voice that called out to her. The couple hadn't been there earlier that day, and Ximena wasn't interested in stopping for some stupid conversation about how people were _bad_ when she had already had her share of that with the Void Woman. Ximena ignored Helen, danced away from her reaching hands.

Ximena ran.

She caught herself before she crashed into the warehouse door; blood was left smudged on it when she braced herself on it, her head swimming with pain and dizziness. Her stomach turned, and she doubled over, puking all over again.

She leaned against the door as she finished, tears burning her eyes. She trembled, but forced the door open and stepped over the mess into the warehouse.

Light flooded in, and she cast a long shadow as she stood at the doorway. She didn't know what she was supposed to do.

It hurt, feeling as small as she did. The Void lady had made it painfully obvious that no, Ximena was _not_ cut out to deal with _bad_ people she came across. More than that, the Void Lady had shattered some wall inside of her.

Ximena knew, had known since her parents had died, that she was strong. That she had a strength in her that even grown men didn't have. This wasn't new. She knew she could feel what others felt as easily as she knew what she had felt. That wasn't new either. And she also knew, the way children always knew, that it unnerved those around her when she picked up something heavy a little too easily. That she pushed a little too hard. That she could make comments that cut a little too deep because she already knew how someone felt.

It was the reason she had been in five foster homes and a single group home since the Battle of New York. It was the reason she kept being sent away. It was the reason she had survived after being sent away.

What was new, what scared her and shook her to her core, was that now, apparently, she could make others feel what she felt as well. And she didn't _want_ people to know how _scared_ she was. They _couldn't_ know, because if they knew, then people like that Void Lady would know they can _hurt_ her.

And if she was honest, she figured the universe had hurt her enough already.

Angry tears welled in her eyes and she brushed them away harshly, wincing when the action pulled at both her aching shoulder and her new stinging cut.

"Stupid," she muttered, and then, shouting with all the rage an orphaned and lost twelve year old could muster, "_Stupid!_"

It was a childish hurt, and an all to real fear that spurred her into action.

She stomped into the warehouse, not bothering to slam the door shut behind her. She slung off her backpack, not breaking her stride as she tore it open and snatched up Oso-osito off the floor and shoved him inside.

_DC was a mistake,_ she decided. _This time I'ma go all the way down to Mexico._

She tore open the doors of the cabinets, trying not to think about the sudden fatigue that spread into her limbs and muddied her thoughts. Shaking her head, she reached in and grabbed the change of clothes she had hidden away, and shoved them into the bag along with the bear. They took up more of the bag than they should have - _fold your clothes!_ her previous foster would have nagged.

_Well, _Ximena thought bitterly, _she didn't just almost get stabbed or attacked by a lady that was one with the void, so she didn't get an imaginary say in the matter._

She took little if any time to consider her stash of stolen goods before she began to pick and choose at random. A couple cans of food she hadn't gotten to, a blank notebook and cracked pen that was liable to break apart at any moment. She filled her bag mindlessly, only pausing at the sight of her bloodied arm as she reached out again. It stung with movement, and she wondered where the heck Crow Man had stashed that first aid kit. She definitely needed a bandaid, or she'd just keep bleeding all over herself. _Bet he'd have patched ya up by now -_

Yeah, well, maybe if he hadn't been acting like a big weirdo jerk.

She shook off the thoughts and tried to focus. Maybe he left it under his Stairs of Death. Holding her bag shut, she scurried over to Crow Man's side of the warehouse, and stopped just short of the shadows of the stairs. It felt… wrong to go under there. It was his space for as long as it had been empty, Ximena realized. That aside, she was still half sure that the stairs would collapse on her the second she stepped under them. But she could feel the blood on her arm going sticky and clinging to her sleeve uncomfortably, and she huffed in annoyance at herself. She'd survived worse, and despite what had just happened, she told herself that some falling stairs wouldn't do her much harm.

Just to be safe, though, she tried to will her eyes golden, tried to draw on the fading strength in her aching body.

Crow Man kept his _Harry Potter_ area near empty. She set her bag down, and crouched down to feel around, not waiting for her eyes to adjust, and only found what she realized was that weird vest thing Crow Man had showed up in. Muttering under her breath, she tossed it aside and moved to stand when she heard it.

A whistle.

It was low and playful, and it sent a chill down Ximena's spine. She looked up, narrowing her eyes to see through the spaces of the stair's steps. A figure was walking toward the warehouse, a man. He stopped by the door, his whistling trailing off. It was impossible for Ximena to make out the details of him as he stood against the light. He was too slim to be Crow Man though, and his clothes weren't bulky enough to be Marty.

Marty didn't ever whistle either.

Cold fear settled into Ximena's gut, and she swallowed hard as she _reached_.

Nothing. Not a damn thing.

The Void stepped into the warehouse, making a show of stepping over the mess Ximena had left. He slid the door shut behind him, as easily as Ximena or Crow Man would have been able to, shutting out the light.

He spoke.

"Little girl," he called, his soft voice carrying through the open space. It was accented, just as the Void Lady's had been. Ximena ducked further into the darkness beneath the stairs, scarcely daring to breathe. She watched as the figure moved, eyes straining to adjust enough for her to make out the details to his person.

He had dark hair, and he wore the same type of dress clothes the Void Lady had worn. Too nice for Ximena's little corner of Foggy Bottom.

"Olly olly oxen free," he sang. "'Nessa didn't mean to frighten you. The game is over now." His voice was insincere, but almost hypnotizing. If Ximena hadn't known that there was nothing inside of him, she would have been tempted to run to him for help.

He moved silently, peeking around the rows of broken shelves as he made his way to Ximena's pallet. She watched, hands shaking as she gripped her bag, muscles aching from how she tensed.

"Oh, little girl, you don't want to stay hiding with that mean ol' солдат, do you?"

There was that word again, _so'dat?_ Why did they call Crow Man that? Was that his name? It didn't _feel _like a name. It felt like a title.

He reached her pallet, kicking at a blanket. She knew that he only had to look up and she'd be seen. Her eyes darted to the door. Could she make it out?

_I can throw a shelf at him if I have to,_ she told herself, and wondered if she actually could. She was already so _tired_.

She shifted, preparing for the run, but her leg gave out from being crouched so long. She stumbled, and the metal of the stairs clanged loudly when she tried to catch herself on it.

The man's head snapped up, and by now Ximena's sight adjusted enough that she could see his sinister smile clearly. She froze, breath catching in her throat.

"Hello, little girl."

Ximena didn't run for the door. She dipped out from under the stairs, the man already moving at her, and instead swung around to climb the steps. The steps creaked and groaned with her panicked movements. She stumbled, almost lost her bag about halfway up, and righted herself, only to see that the man was already at the base of the steps.

She scrambled up the rest, tossing her bag ahead of her. Its contents scattered, having still been open, and when she looked back down over her shoulder, the man was halfway up, sneering up at her and reaching into his pocket.

Ximena didn't think when she reached the top. Her eyes burned, and there was that golden tint that shouldn't have been there in her vision. She lifted her foot, and _stomped _on the top step. The stairs lurched, not disconnecting completely, but enough that it was hanging half off the wall. The man clung to the railing, cursing loudly at nearly being thrown off. He looked up at her, and snarled.

She narrowed her golden eyes at him.

She stomped again, and the whole staircase crumbled beneath her foot. The man lunged, trying to reach her before falling with it. She tumbled back out of his reach, and he fell just short of the safety of the second story.

She didn't wait to hear what happened to him. She scrambled up, half crawling to her bag. She shoved what she could back into it, and this time took the time to zip it up and sling it over her shoulder. There was a fire escape, and she ran to it.

The window was stuck shut, and when she slammed it up, the glass cracked and threatened to shatter. She crawled out, and the escape groaned and swayed precariously beneath her weight.

"Don't fall, don't fall, don't fall," she chanted to herself, easing her way across the grated bottom to the rusted ladder. She glanced down, trying not to think about the last time she was using a fire escape to get out of a sticky situation. She crawled over the railing to the ladder, and, slower than she should have, made her way down.

It didn't reach the bottom, stopping some five feet above the ground. Ximena leaned her head against the rung in front of her and steeled herself for the jump.

Her legs gave out from beneath her, and she tumbled down when she landed, falling hard on her bottom. The only thing that saved her from landing flat on her back and smacking her head again was her overstuffed backpack. As she picked herself up, her legs shook, and the fatigue she was fighting off was rearing its ugly head again. She found herself in the small ally space between the warehouse and the little outbuilding next to it.

"_Nena!_"

She looked toward the back of the warehouse, and there, outlined by the sunlight, stood Crow Man. She didn't have to _reach_ to know it was him, really him, and not that _Other_.

She ran to him, colliding into him heavily, but not so much as to rock him back, and wrapped her arms around his middle, hiding her face into his chest.

He stood stock-still for a split second before she felt his arms envelope her, a hand resting on the back of her head.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, and Ximena shook her head. She didn't speak, because she could already feel a lump forming in her throat and if she tried to, she knew she'd end up crying. "Okay. Okay, _nena_. We can't stay."

She looked up at him, not wanting to pull away yet. Because he was solid and safe and she shouldn't have run from him to begin with.

"A man," she croaked, and his brow furrowed. "There's a man in there, he - he came after me. He felt _wrong_."

Crow Man cursed quietly, or Ximena guessed it was a curse from his tone. She didn't understand the word.

"Come," he said, pulling away and taking Ximena's hand. She clung to his arm, and he let her. His pace was faster than she would have liked, but she didn't stumble once, never mind how jelly her legs were feeling. They moved toward the back of the warehouse, and were almost out when a low whistle echoed in the small ally space from behind them.

Ximena froze, fear locking her into place. Crow Man whirled, and just as quick, he wasn't _Crow Man_ anymore, not really. He was that _other_. Ximena dared not look at his face as he pulled her along him, tucking her to his side and half hidden behind him. The Void stepped around the warehouse and into the alley space, and let out another whistle.

A high whistle mirrored the first, and Ximena's head snapped back to see the Void Lady stalking up behind them. Her clothes were disheveled, and her bun hung low now, hair escaping from its confines and framing her face. Her eyes were lit with a hollow light, a manic grin growing on her face as she moved forward.

Crow Man, hissing under his breath, shifted so his back was to the warehouse wall, and Ximena was hidden completely behind him.

The Void Man said something Ximena couldn't understand, and the Lady let out a high giggle in response. Crow Man let out a clipped response, giving Ximena's wrist a squeeze as the Voids continued to move toward them.

Their movements were synchronized, Ximena realized, as they moved in on them. Step for step, with head tilts to match. The man though, he didn't have the mania in his eyes the woman did. No, as he got closer, Ximena noticed that he didn't have anything in them at all.

The Void Lady spoke, holding out a hand to Crow Man. Ximena felt him tense in front of her, and he gave a single word of reply. The grin slid off her face, and her expression darkened. Her eyes dropped down to Ximena, and Crow Man moved his arm just so to block her from sight. He spoke again, and the Void Lady arched a brow. Ximena would have thought her to be amused if not for the complete lack of _anything_ in her.

The man answered, and the woman cut him off, and Ximena, scared and tired as she was, did _not_ like that she had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Crow Man spoke again, and barely contained _rage_ seethed beneath his words. Not once since he had been with her had he ever used that tone, had he ever openly _felt_ like that.

The woman seemed to consider, and held up a hand to silence the man when he opened his mouth to speak. Again she looked down at Ximena.

She spoke, tone bright and cheery, and the man let out an irritated huff. She lifted her hands, a placating gesture that read too much like the _don't say I never do anything nice_ a foster sister Ximena had once would do all the time. As it was, that foster sister was a bit of a horrible person.

She walked, crossing the alley space in front of Crow Man, and Crow Man moved as she did, but toward the back of the warehouse. They kept their fronts to each other, the Void with her hands held up and Crow Man gripping Ximena's wrist with one hand and holding out his other to keep her behind him, an added barrier from the Voids.

The woman dropped her arms, and a bored expression took over her face. Crow Man slowly, as though he didn't want to, released Ximena's wrist.

"Go, _nena_."

She drew back in shock, looking up at him in disbelief.

"What?" She grabbed at his arm and tugged on him. "No, Crow Man, you-you gotta, you haveta come, you can't sta-"

"_Nena_." Ximena swallowed hard, and he risked looking down at her. His expression softened, apologetic, and Ximena _hated_ how _sincere_, how _affectionate_ it was. "Go."

A lump formed in her throat, and tears burned her eyes as she took a couple shakey steps back. Why couldn't he have yelled at her? Why couldn't he have raised a hand to hit her, why did he have to come back for her- It would have been easier if he didn't actually _care_, and if she didn't either.

"Go," he repeated, just as soft.

Ximena ran.

* * *

"_Ready, Soldier?_" the woman Hound asked as she and her partner moved in on him, cautiously and with blades in their hands.

Once, when she had been young and still had the good sense to feign fear, she had told him her name. He thought it started with an I.

The Soldier lunged at them in response.

The woman was more fluid in her fight, not unlike the Widows he helped train, but she was also more straightforward than them. She liked to keep her feet on the ground. The man mirrored the woman, following her lead. He never could do anything himself. It left him predictable and sloppy.

The Soldier focused his energy on the woman.

He struck out with his metal arm. She danced around it, her blade glancing off of it. She tried to crowd into him, but he moved with her, leaving enough space for his blows to actually mean anything.

The man swung his blade at him, and the Soldier kicked back the woman. He caught the man by the wrist, and the man kicked out, his foot connecting with the side of the Soldier's knee. He hissed, but kept his footing, and twisted. The man tottered forward, off balanced, and the Soldier caught him by the throat. He squeezed.

The woman launched herself at him, and he had to drop the man as she threw her legs around his shoulders. He threw up his arm, and growled as a sharp, hot pain exploded in his forearm. He caught the blade before she could drive it into his throat. He slammed back into the warehouse wall, and she lost enough of her grip that he was able to toss her off of him.

She landed in a somersault, and the Hounds were at him again.

They moved to and fro. The Hounds moved in tandem, one distracting and the other trying to dive into his unguarded spaces. He caught them just in time, and landed his own fleeting blows as they danced away from him. Infuriating though it was, the Soldier kept pace with them, mechanical in nature and not slowing.

Nor did he speed up, or apply more pressure to his blows. He didn't tear the blades away from them like he would have any other time. He had scaled himself down for this fight.

The longer he kept them occupied, the longer they were focused on him, the farther away the girl would get.

He swung out his left arm, and felt it connect as he backhanded the man away. The hit landed solidly, and the man stumbled, stunned. The woman slid in, and the Soldier sidestepped, slamming into her outreached arm and redirecting her. She twirled, latching onto his arm and using his momentum to throw him off balance. He over corrected (_stupid_), and she swiped low with her blade. It caught him just above his knee, too shallow to cause serious damage or knick anything of import, but deep enough for him to _feel _it. He snarled, and she slammed her fist into the cut, then into his chest, sending him reeling back.

He fell back into the warehouse wall, felt it give only just beneath him.

She snarled at him. "_You're not _trying!" she accused. She twirled the knife in her hands, and he recognized the self soothing action from the days he trained her. The blade was slick with his blood. "_You're slow, Soldier, and hitting like a _child_-" _She went still with realization, and she scoffed. "_You sneak, you're stalling."_

She wiped at her mouth, smearing her own blood across her face from a blow he had landed that busted her lip. The skin around her jaw darkened, began to swell. Next to her, the man began to stand. Blood trickled from his hairline, and a gash cut through his cheek from where the Soldier's blow had landed. He seemed unperturbed by it; he didn't seem to _feel _it.

"_If you hadn't let the little brat go_," the man said to the woman, shaking off the blow as he straightened. The Soldier bared his teeth at the mention of the girl. "_we'd have a real fight_."

The Soldier would show them a _real_ fight. Would tear out their throats with his teeth and crush their skulls with his fist-

_Terror_ stuck him cold, _grief_ and _shame_ nearly knocked him to his knees. In front of him, the Hounds froze, and the knife trembled in the woman's hands. The Soldier saw her face twist, involuntary tears filling her eyes.

For a creature who has never felt anything short of boredom, the emotions rendered her helpless and broken.

His chest tightened with the oppressive emotions, felt as though he would _drown_ in them if not for the sound of metal scraping on asphalt pulling him out of his stupor. He looked to the side, as did the Hounds, and saw a large industrial dumpster being pushed into the alley space.

A curly haired head peeked over the side, golden eyes squinting at him, and then disappeared back behind the dumpster.

The dumpster _careened_ into the alley faster than any object that size had any right to move, and the Soldier had to step back to avoid being clipped by it. Rancid air blew in his face from the speed of its movement, and it slammed into the Hounds with so much force it continued on for another five or so feet after colliding into them.

The Soldier blinked once, twice. The dumpster stopped at such an angle that he could not see the Hounds on the other side of it, and he did not hear them stir.

He looked back at where the dumpster had come from. The girl stood there, chest heaving and golden eyes flickering, her hands still splayed out in front of her. The dread he had felt eased away, and he realized at once it had been her that set the emotions upon them.

She dropped her arms heavily, and took an uneasy step backward. Her legs buckled out from under her, and the Soldier was already running to her as her eyes rolled back and she collapsed into a heap.

It was Crow Man, and not the Soldier, that fell to his knees beside the girl and pulled her into his arms. She breathed, shallowly, but even as he looked her over for further injuries, he noted how her breaths deepened and evened out. Her pulse felt too quick, but not near enough to worry him. From what he could surmise, it hadn't been any injury that caused her to collapse. Her arm still bled sluggishly, and while the hit she had taken to the head earlier might be something to worry about, he was certain that it had been _exhaustion_ that took her down.

He cradled her in his arms as he stood, resting her head on his shoulder. He walked out of the alley with the girl. Away from the Hounds. Away from HYDRA once more.

* * *

**Hello! I hope everyone is doing well as all this craziness in the world continues! Wanna thank y'all for your reviews and fav/follows, and pls know your reactions to the last chapter gave me LIFE. Lemme know how this one turned out - it was my first like. legit fight scene and I'm open to any and all notes. also. That dumpster scene was the first thing I ever had planned for NQO and finally getting to write it had me CACKLING.**

**alright the isolation is obviously getting to me and i've gone on longer than I needed.**

**Wash your hands and stay schway y'all.**


	11. game plan

**the world (or my corner of it at least) might still be a trash fire but hey i got an update for you. also made minor edits to previous chs so if they're outta order or there's repeats, pls let me know**

* * *

Pitch darkness surrounded her, and everything _hurt_ (head pounding, shoulder throbbing, stomach gnawing itself inside out). Ximena tried to open her eyes, wanted to _see_, but found that they were already open wide, and her breath caught in her throat. Acute panic made her heart slam against her rib cage so hard that her stuttering heartbeat was all she could hear.

_The rubble pressing down, screams, screams-_

_She can't move, she can't move, she can't move_

Ximena pushed herself up, not waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness - even if she did, she couldn't see, tears blurring her vision. She tried to stand, but her legs gave out, and she cut herself off before she could cry out, biting her tongue. The ground was hard, and cold against her palms. She reached out blindly, hands searching and grabbing into the darkness.

_Move, Ximena, move, _mija_, mo-_

A faraway voice called - _chittering and crackling - _and she jumped away from it, scrambling back wildly. It followed, and must have been closer than she realized. A hand grabbed at her, hard, too hard for her to pull away.

Despite the darkness, Ximena could see her as clear as the last moment she had seen her. Bloody and broken, hair plastered to her face. She moved now, broken fingers clawing at Ximena, gripping at her to hold her in place. Her mother's last attempt to protect her daughter twisted, and Ximena knew, she _knew_, her mom would drag her down to death with her.

Ximena _screamed_. Her vision flooded with blinding _gold_. She threw her hands out, but a vice grip caught both of her wrists.

"_-na!"_

_Chittering and crumbling and screaming and_

"_Nena!"_

Ximena froze. She knew that voice. She knew - she was lurched from her waking nightmare. The gold faded from her vision, and while the dark was still as oppressive as ever, she found her vision adjusted just enough to make out the figure in front of her, holding her still.

The building did not collapse around her. It was not her mother's death grip holding her in place. There were no Chitauri waiting for them outside.

"Crow Man?" Her voice, already hoarse, cracked. The grip loosened on her wrists.

"_Nena_." He spoke carefully. Ximena felt the tightly coiled panic in her chest unwind only just. He began to release her wrists, and she knew that once he did she'd stumble back into the dark, back to the attack, back into her mother's dead arms. She lurched at him, clinging to him, not bothering to try and hide her tears of panic.

Just like in the alley, he went still, seemed unsure of what to do. She felt his arms wrap around her, gently, and then pull her close. He was speaking.

"I got you, _nena_," he said.

* * *

For seventy years he had killed on command. He didn't exist, and when he did, it was to strike fear in those that stood against him. Against HYDRA.

He had never been meant to _comfort_ someone before, much less a _child_.

Crow Man found himself rocking her - _children like being rocked, don't they?_ \- and spoke what he hoped were reassurances. He had expected some sort of reaction from the girl when she woke, but the full blown _panic_, the terror in her eyes, her _scream_… that was something he saw of grown men surviving wars, not little girls.

Perhaps the dock warehouse had not been the best place to bring her, he thought. But it was _safe_. Felt _familiar_. And it was not as though leaving her had ever been an option. A mission had been triggered by the Hounds' appearance.

The girl was his to protect.

His charge wept now, almost silently. He had next to no experience with children, but he was certain that they weren't _quiet_ when they cried. Hell, most _adults_ were blubbering messes when they shed tears.

He felt her slip back into unconsciousness. She had already slept for hours - slept through the backroad drive from DC to New York (he had stopped once at a gas station that had no camera and stolen a pair of jackets, a hat for the girl), and slept for several hours longer after he found the abandoned dock warehouse to hide away in for the night. Had even stayed asleep as he bandaged her arm. But he did not know how her enhancements impacted her.

She must have been enhanced, to have the power she did. He narrowed his eyes at the darkness. Had someone done this to her, as they had with him?

No, now was not the time to think about that.

He tried to lay her back down, but she let out a strangled whimper, and dug her fingers into his shirt. _Ah. Alright then._ He shifted - he could hold an uncomfortable position for hours, but it would be better for the girl, he decided, if he wasn't kneeling so awkwardly. She settled against him, and as he looked down at her, enhanced vision cutting through the darkness, he was struck once again by how painfully _young_ she was.

Something in him twisted anxiously. Nerves. He wasn't _used_ to those - he couldn't afford to have them before missions. HYDRA hadn't allowed him to, had programmed those emotions out of him. And now that he was shaking free from that programming…

He was nervous. Uncertain.

What the _hell _was he supposed to do with the girl.

**Objective: Protect The Girl**

He shook the voice out of his head; yes he _knew_ that. He was more certain of this particular mission than any he had had before. Perhaps even Rogers. But he didn't - he was an assassin, a _killer_. He couldn't care for a child, not long term.

No matter how attached he had gotten.

She had a living grandmother, he remembered. One she had been convinced she could run away to, one that would care for her. Perhaps he could escort her. She'd be safe, out of the Hounds' sights then. And he could disappear. Leave Crow Man behind. Return to the shadows.

The idea made him ache. But it would see his mission completed.

The girl began to whimper, and he held her closer. "I got you," he said softly, and she eased.

He was, to put it bluntly, fucked.

* * *

When Ximena woke the second time, she still hurt, probably hurt even more than before, but there was _light_. Dim, soft light. And she was being held, cradled even, in a pair of arms. She might have fallen back asleep, but a voice above her head spoke.

"_Nena_."

Her eyes snapped back open. She looked up slowly, and saw Crow Man looking down at her. He arched a brow at her. She felt his _amusement, _light and soft. Embarrassment flooded her, and she swatted at his arms as she scrambled away. She wasn't some _baby_ that needed to be held.

"What the _hell_?" she snapped, turning back to face him. He was leaning back, holding his hands up in a placating manner. She noticed how his right sleeve was torn, and a white bandage was wrapped around his forearm.

"You…" he searched for the right word. "Panicked when you woke la-"

Ximena threw up her hands. She didn't want to hear about that. There were vague flashes - _bloody hands, chittering - _but the nightmare was fading from her memory. She looked around, frowning. Unease filled her when she didn't recognize her surroundings. They were in a warehouse, but not _their_ warehouse. It was just as abandoned though, and early morning light streamed in through the dirty windows. She heard water outside. She looked to Crow Man. He seemed… apologetic.

"We couldn't have stayed," he told her. "It wasn't safe."

"Why - Oh." She remembered then. The woman and the man and how they didn't feel like _anything_. Voids. She remembered throwing the woman - throwing _Crow Man_, and throwing _up_ on him. She remembered that she had _pushed_ her emotions.

She swallowed hard, and looked away. She felt her hands begin to shake, and she balled them into fists to try and get them to stop.

Ximena was young, but she wasn't _stupid_. She knew what people thought of mutants. _Freaks_. She wasn't _perfect_ at keeping her secret, but she tried, for the most part, to never put a name to it. She didn't show off. There was only one person in the whole world she had told, and that had been because the nerd had found out on his own.

"Are you okay?" Crow Man asked. Ximena looked at him, and didn't see the disgust or rage or even mild annoyance she had prepared herself for if anyone ever really found out about her. There was just _concern. _She _reached_, an unconscious habit. He was muted, but not completely, less than he usually was except for when that _Other_ had been around. _Concern_ to match his expression, but she also caught an undercurrent of _guilt_.

"You're not… mad?" His brow furrowed in confusion. "That I-I threw you…" It was easier, only just, for her to say it that way. His eyes lit up with understanding, and there was a shift in him. Ximena felt him shove everything down, the way he always did.

"That you're enhanced."

She wasn't sure what that meant. "I-" She swallowed hard against the sudden flare of fear she felt. Her own. She didn't think she had reason to worry - Crow Man hadn't left her after she had thrown him, and just now he hadn't been mad. She forced herself to speak. "I'm a mutant."

The realization hit her that she had never actually spoken those words aloud. It felt surreal to do so now. She picked at the back of her hand as she went on.

"I'm-I'm strong and I can _feel_ what people feel. My eyes glow if I really gotta try."

She didn't _reach_, she didn't think she wanted to know how he felt about it. But when she finally looked up at him, she drew back in shock, and maybe a little fear. The muscle in his jaw jumped, and his eyes narrowed, backlit with cold, white _rage_.

"Someone _did_ this to you?"

His voice was halting and barely contained, and Ximena realized that it was not _her_ he was upset at, but at whoever he thought had made her this way. _Had someone done something to him to make him more?_

She shook her head in a rush. "I was born like this, I think. They don't really go over it in science class. People don't like to talk about us." She wrapped her arms around her middle, and her shoulder twinged at the movement. Crow Man had relaxed, and she saw the relief in his eyes. "It doesn't weird you out?" she asked.

He arched a brow at her. "A little girl throwing me across an alley is not the strangest thing I've seen, _nena_."

Ximena felt a stir of annoyance. She wanted to argue that she wasn't _little_, but she thought that maybe there were more important things to bring up.

"Who were those people?" Crow Man went still. She didn't have to feel it to know that he hadn't wanted to talk about it. But if she had to let him in on her secret, he should let her in on his. "They knew you."

Crow Man looked like he didn't want to answer. He looked away, and she began to wonder if she would get her answers.

"Yes," he said finally.

"How?"

He closed his eyes, and Ximena could practically feel his mind churning, searching for the answer. Did he know? Or was it something from before he scrambled his head? "We worked together," he said, and when he opened his eyes, he seemed to have gone hollow. "For a very long time."

Ximena narrowed her eyes at him. Yeah, she didn't know much about Crow Man, and yeah he was an _adult_, but he didn't look _old_ enough to work with anyone for a "very long time." Even with his whole homeless man beard.

"You don't look very old though," she accused, and he gave a slight smile, barely there, almost bitter. "You look kinda like my cousin Sal, and he was only like, twenty something, I think."

"I'm older than I look," was the only explanation he gave. Ximena remembered his comment about the freezer for seventy years. Maybe… if Captain America… she shook her head. Crow Man wasn't _that_ cool.

"Why'd they wanna hurt you?" she asked.

"I left," he said.

Ximena hesitated. "Why?" she asked finally.

He looked at her; he hadn't anticipated that question. His brow furrowed, as though he was trying to puzzle out his answer. And Ximena felt those thin whisps of emotion again, the ones she had felt from him in the laundromat. The _guilt_, the _resentment,_ and the _longing_.

He opened his mouth to answer, closed it. Searched for the words that she would understand.

"I did not want to be a bad man anymore."

Ximena didn't know what Crow Man had done before he was Crow Man - maybe that was who that _Other_ was - but she had never gotten the sense that he was _bad_. She didn't think a bad man would stand up for her against that stupid security guard at the museum, or beat up a bunch of mean drunks that threatened her. A bad man, she was certain, wouldn't have cared if the Void Lady had taken her away at the store.

"I don't think you're a bad man," she offered. He looked like he wanted to argue, but she went on. "You didn't leave me, didja?" she asked. "You didn't have to go lookin' for me after I… ya know. Pushed you."

His expression warped, and he looked almost offended. "Yes, I did."

"A bad man wouldn'ta done that," she told him knowingly. He huffed, and it sounded like a choked off laugh. She knew he thought she was being childish. Maybe she was. But Crow Man wasn't _bad_. Even that _other_ wasn't really _bad_, just. Hollow and angry. And never angry at her.

They sat in silence for a moment. Ximena looked around and saw her bag resting next to Crow Man. She reached for it, and he handed it over.

Without looking up at him, she asked, "So. What now?"

"Can't stay here."

She frowned at him, pausing her search through her bag - she had found her bear, but her journal… "Where is here?"

"Brooklyn."

She blinked. "New-New York?!" He had the decency to look apologetic. "Why are we in New York?" How badly she had wanted to get out of the city, and now she was right back to square one.

"It felt safe." Ximena huffed at that answer. _Safe for who?_ She wanted to demand. Certainly not her - not after losing her parents in it, after being abandoned by the rest of her family and denied the one person that had _wanted_ her. And certainly not after two years of being shuffled around every two to three months like an unwanted toy. No, New York had never felt safe for her.

But before she could unleash her thoughts on him, Crow Man spoke again.

"We're not staying," he reiterated, but Ximena was caught on the use of _we_, and tried to shove down the flurry of relief she felt at that. He wasn't going to leave her? "It's not safe."

She blinked, and then scowled up at him. "But you _just_ said-"

"_Felt_," he said, cutting her off, and there was a contemplative sort of expression on his face, like there was something he wanted to puzzle out, only he couldn't. But then he shook his head and went on. "Not that it _was_." He scowled, face darkening, and muttered something in that harsh tone and language she couldn't understand, but was pretty sure was what he had spoken to the Voids. "They'll be moving by now."

Ximena was fairly certain she wasn't supposed to hear that, judging by how Crow Man looked at her when an involuntary noise of fear made its way out of her.

"Those people?" she asked, and try as she might, she couldn't keep her voice from shaking. "They're coming again?"

She didn't think she could handle another meeting like before.

Crow Man, for what it was worth, didn't try to lie to her the way she knew other adults would. When he spoke, his voice was firm, but gentle.

"They will try," he told her, "but not for you, _nena_. You are not theirs to take." There was such a strong undercurrent of conviction in his voice, a hint of the _Other _shining through, and Ximena knew better than to doubt his word. He had spoken a promise, and she knew he intended to keep it.

"Yeah, but neither are _you_," she blurted, and he blinked away all traces of the Other. "Why can't they leave you alone?"

His expression softened. "There is a lot of history there," he said gently, and left it at that. "Are you ready to move?"

She nodded and he stood, holding a hand out for Ximena. When she reached up, he shook his head.

"Other hand," he told her, and she scowled before realizing that she had held out her left arm, with her busted shoulder. She huffed, and reached with her other. He pulled her up easily, and righted her when she stumbled a bit.

She looked at him, and then down at herself. Both of them had blood on their clothes. He had a bruise at his temple.

"People are gonna call the cops on us for looking like serial killers," she told him. "Or at least you." She looked down, saw a stain and tear on his pants, just above his knee. She pointed at it, wanting to know what had happened there.

He had gotten it fighting the Voids, she thought, he must have. She wondered about that fight - how had it been going before she interrupted?

"It's fine," he assured her, grabbing his bag from the floor and opening it. "Here," he told her, pulling out a… ah, that was a jacket. He handed it to her. She held it up in front of her. It was grey, and too big by at least two sizes. She slipped it on, zipped it up, and pulled the hood up. It fell half over her face, and she felt the sleeves fall over her hands.

It _was_ comfy though.

She heard a huff, and her hood was pulled back. A hat attacked her head, and she squawked as it flattened her curls against her head.

"Less like a serial killer," Crow Man said, and she pulled up the brim of the hat to see him shrug on his own jacket - _oh, isn't that convenient that his actually fit him_ \- and pull a cap over his own head. The hat she had gotten him in DC, she noticed.

She crinkled her nose at him. "Only a little bit." She shook her sleeve down to free her hand and held her pointer finger and thumb about an inch apart. She grabbed her bag, zipping it up and trying to push down the unease she felt at the fact that she still hadn't found her journal.

"Crow Man?" she started before he could start for the door. He hummed in acknowledgement as he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulders. She hesitated, only for a second, before reminding herself that she had a right to ask this particular question. "Where are we going?"

He went still, and then nodded. "Out of the city first," he said, and he spoke in a slow, careful way, like he was still trying to sort out what he meant to say next. "And then, if you would like, I can take you to your grandmother."

Ximena looked up at him, blinking as his words sunk in. Her… her _abuelita_? He'd help her get to her?

"Real - really?' she asked, her voice catching in her throat with emotion. The thought of seeing her _abuela_ after so long, of being able to check on her after she had stopped writing back, made her vision blur with unshed eyes.

Crow Man nodded. "Of course," he said, and Ximena _reached_, because she wanted to believe him, but this wasn't something he wanted to take a chance on. All she could feel was his _sincerity_, and she knew he had spoken a promise.

She threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around his middle for the second time since they had been in the warehouse, though she had no memory of the first incident. Crow Man made a noise of surprise as the brim of her cap thumped against his chest, but he made no move to push her away. Instead, he brought his own arms around her, holding her to him.

Blinking back tears, Ximena looked up at him. "Thanks, Crow Man," she said, and he offered a small smile, resting a hand on top of her head. There was an undercurrent of _melancholy_ from him that she didn't really understand, but wouldn't question.

"Okay?" he asked, and she nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes!" she said, and bounced on her toes, excitement building into a burst of energy. "Let's blow this popsicle stand, Crow Man," she said, and he blinked in confusion. But she wasn't about to let that bring her down - they were going to find her _abuelita_. "Let's _go!_"

He seemed to fight back a smile. Crow Man led the way to the warehouse door - a normal door, not the slidey kind she was used to. He pushed it open, poked his head out. Once he deemed it safe, he stepped out, and she followed him.

She blinked at the light. She heard birds, loud and obnoxious, and _water_. Docks, she realized. They were on docks. She swallowed hard, despite the fact that they weren't _near _the water, and inched closer to Crow Man.

She couldn't swim, and large bodies of water kinda freaked her out.

Crow Man noticed the movement, and looked down at her. She made a point to ignore him. She wasn't a _baby_. She was just. Cautious.

He held out a hand to her, and she stared at it in surprise, then up at him. He offered a smile, soft and barely there, and Ximena felt her chest go warm with _affection _that wasn't hers. Not originally, at least. But she had a reputation to uphold.

"Baby," Ximena said, taking his hand. It was warm, and callused, and Ximena noticed how his knuckles were bruised and busted, scabbed from the fight. She looked away. "Don't gotta be scared, Crow Man, if anyone tries to beat you up again, you got me to throw another dumpster."

He made a noise that might have been a laugh. "Yes," he agreed. "I got you, _nena_."

_Nena_ \- there it was again, and she didn't _mind_ it but… she would like him to know her actual name. Just because he couldn't give his name didn't mean she couldn't share hers.

She opened her mouth to speak, snapped it close again, hesitating. Crow Man noticed.

"Wha-"

"Ximena," she blurted, and he looked down at her in confusion. She cleared her throat. "My, uh. My name. He-Mehn-Ah," she said, pronouncing it slow and loud because she knew sometimes people tripped over it, never mind how easy she thought it was. "Santiago," she added, almost an afterthought.

Crow Man was _looking_ at her, as though it hadn't even _crossed_ his mind that this was information he should have asked for. Ximena didn't hold it against him - obviously he had other things on his mind.

"Ximena," he repeated, and he pronounced it perfectly. His brow furrowed. "You never told me."

"You never asked," she said with a shrug. " You can still, ya know, call me _nena_ if you want. But now you know."

He hummed. "Now I know."

* * *

**And it only took Bucky a whole month (a year for us though huh) for him to find out what her name actually is. Let's see how long it takes for Ximena to learn his.**

**stay schway y'all**


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